


Heart and Soul

by Kate_Shepard



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Destroy Ending, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Smut, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Shakarian - Freeform, Shakarios - Freeform, Shrios, Thane Lives, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:19:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6326962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard wakes up in the hospital after activating the Crucible. Someone unexpected shows up and Shepard's plans with Garrus for after the war are thrown into a tailspin. </p><p>Post-ME3 destroy ending without all of the ridiculous convoluted excuses for angst. Major headcanon explained in notes at end if not covered in the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> BioWare owns the Mass Effect universe and all characters. I just play with it for my own entertainment.

Light, bright light, pressed against her eyelids, beckoning her to open them and face a new day, new horrors, new deaths. The light was wrong for her cabin, though, and the medicinal tang to the air combined with the sounds of monitors beeping softly and the pain beginning to announce its presence made her think that she was in the med bay. That wasn't right, either, though. It was too quiet, too still. The familiar vibrating hum from the _Normandy_ 's drive core was conspicuously absent and the light that bathed her face held a hint of warmth that told her it was sunlight rather than artificial lighting. Shepard didn't have the best history with waking up in strange medical facilities and she focused her control to keep her breathing even and her muscles loose. She didn't want anyone to know she'd woken until she had time to take stock of her surroundings and prepare for a potentially hostile situation.

First had been Lazarus Station where she'd had to push her newly revived body through wave after wave of hostile mechs and had not stopped fighting again for months after. She'd found herself surrounded by strangers, her crew scattered to the edges of the galaxy, alone and unsure of everything she'd thought was real before.

She'd found her crew eventually, but they had changed in the intervening years and Garrus was the only one willing to immediately follow her again, to trust that she was still her and that her mission was more important than just one race's interest. She'd loved Garrus for almost as long as she'd known him but quickly discovered that he, too, had changed and was lost in some deep well of grief and anger that she couldn't penetrate. She was still too off-balance herself and his constant claims of "Maybe later? I'm in the middle of some calibrations," made her feel even more alone. It had, however, had the benefit of forcing her to get to know the rest of her new crew.

Then Thane had come and her world had been turned upside down once more. Her first reaction to him had been a combination of mindless, raging lust and admiration mixed with anger over his open disdain. She hadn't liked him, but she'd wanted him all the same. That had changed as she'd gotten to know him. Unlike Garrus, Thane always made time for her. Even when she interrupted his meditations, he'd seemed happy to see her and had taken the time to talk. She'd begun seeking him out more often. He had been a port in the storm and the first of her crew to call her friend.

Her feelings for Garrus had not changed but it had become clear to her that they were not reciprocated and she'd found the love and affection she had for him expanding to include Thane as well. Thane had returned that love with vigor and devotion. He'd stood by her side through the hell that was the Collector base while Garrus led the second team. Thane's presence beside her and Garrus' steady voice in her ear had made the impossible seem simply difficult.

She recalled the first and only real argument that she and Thane had ever had. Hackett had requested that she go solo on an extraction mission in the Bahak system. Thane had vehemently objected to her solitary infiltration of the batarian prison but, after cutting ties with the Illusive Man and taking off with her ship, she had needed to get back into the Alliance's good graces. She'd needed Hackett's support in order to do that. She couldn't refuse him simply to make Thane happy even though she understood that the source of Thane's anger had been fear for her. His fear had proven founded, though not for the reasons they'd thought.

The second time she'd woken up in a strange bed with monitoring equipment attached and sedatives heavy in her blood had been on that damn asteroid after Kenson's people had kept her drugged for two days. It had led to her being forced to send the asteroid into the mass relay and kill three hundred thousand batarians. She didn't like batarians and never had, but genocide of any race left bitter ash in her mouth. It had become one of many horrifying calls she'd had to make over the course of the war but it had been her first of that magnitude and she'd stumbled under the weight of it.

Thane had been there to hold her up. The words of an old Earth song flashed through her head whenever she thought about Aratoht and the way he had kept her from drowning in her own guilt and self-loathing. _Take me high and I'll sing. Oh, you make everything okay. We are one and the same. Oh, you take all of the pain away. Save me if I become my demons._ The memory hurt now. It was one of the last nights they'd had together before the Alliance had ripped them apart for six months and the galaxy had gone to hell.

She had been kept locked away in Vancouver on Earth while Thane's time had slipped away like the last grains of sand in an hourglass. Unbidden, a hot tear trickled from the corner of her eye. She'd tried to find him when the Reapers had hit but, though he'd sent her a message asking her to come to Huerta on the Citadel and she'd immediately changed course, he hadn't been there. She'd located Kolyat who had told her of how Thane's condition had rapidly declined and that he'd vanished. Kolyat had sympathetically theorized that Thane had chosen to return to Kahje to die so that his body could be given to the sea. She hadn't wanted to believe it but the sorrow in Kolyat's eyes and his quiet sympathy had cemented the truth of his words. The vids he'd given her with Thane's farewell had confirmed it. Thane was dead. Their last lingering embrace the day she'd delivered him to the Citadel to keep him out of the Alliance's hands had been their final goodbye.

She couldn't have gotten through everything that had come after without Garrus' solid presence. She'd felt incredibly guilty the first time she had turned to him for comfort. It had felt like she was betraying Thane. Garrus had been understanding but had pointed out that Thane himself had found love again after losing his wife and that he'd been many things but a hypocrite was not one of them. Thane would not have begrudged her finding a semblance of happiness with another. It had eased the guilt and when her grief had threatened to weigh her down, he'd been there to hold her up until she could regain her footing.

The last several years had brought horrors beyond imagining but they had also brought her more fortune than she deserved. They had given her not one but two loves of a depth and beauty that so many searched for and never found even once. One had been taken from her but she never regretted the blessing of experiencing it. Thane and Garrus, her best friends, her rocks, two extraordinary men who'd stood by her in extraordinary times. Gods, how she loved them. A smile threatened to curve her lips despite her pain when she recalled the dance she'd shared with Garrus, their last party with all of the crew that were her family, their plans to retire somewhere tropical, live off of the proceeds of the vids, and adopt krogan babies.

That final memory triggered the rest and panic made her breathing catch and destroyed the calm facade she'd managed to maintain. If there were enemies nearby, they could not doubt her awareness now but her control was shattered by the memory of Garrus reaching for her in the shuttle bay of the _Normandy_ , watching the ship fly away with the man she'd loved for years and the little sister who'd stood with them both through everything. Even through the mask, Tali's desperation had shown clearly.

She'd thought that Harbinger's laser had been the end of it all until she'd woken, battered and bloody, in a field of fire and death. The beam had been so close. She'd almost made it before taking the hit, but in the condition she'd found herself it had felt like light years. Nothing she'd seen before had prepared her for the house of horrors she'd found at the end of that beam. She could still taste the stench of eviscerated bodies and feel the squelch of congealing blood under her dragging boots. She'd almost hoped that she wouldn't wake again when darkness had overtaken her after she'd killed Anderson. _You did good, child._ Another pang of pain shot through her at the thought of her mentor and father figure and it overwhelmed the pain in her body.

The weight of the preceding years had collapsed entirely upon her when she'd been confronted with the Catalyst and the choices therein. There had been no question of which choice she would make. The Reapers' destruction had been inevitable from the moment she'd seen the transmission from Eden Prime. The cost, though, had been so high. EDI who'd learned to love them all and had devoted herself fully to the cause. The geth whom she'd worked so hard and risked so much to ally with the quarians. Her very life.

She'd bid Garrus goodbye with a whispered apology. _Come back alive. It'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you._ She couldn't bear to imagine his pain. If she did, she would have faltered. So she'd pushed the thought of him away and called Thane to her mind. _We are alive, Siha. And when we are not, I will meet you across the sea._ It had given her the strength to throw off her pain and fear and doubt and stride forward with purpose, to embrace the flames that rolled out to wrap around her like a sadistic lover, to commit genocide once more and thereby save the rest of the galaxy.

Instead of the sea, she found herself in what she now realized was a hospital. Somehow, some way, she'd survived. Again. She was beginning to wonder if she was capable of dying. Had Cerberus' alterations to her doomed her to live forever, to watch as her friends and loved ones aged and died, to bid goodbye to even Liara, Wrex, and Grunt as they succumbed to the ravages of time? Would she ever be allowed to cross the sea to find Thane, to take the seat at the bar with Garrus?

"Breathe, Siha."

She had imagined Thane's voice countless times, had even imagined she'd seen him as she'd leaned over the railing of the observation deck over the docks where the _Normandy_ waited for her final run. Always before, though, it had been faint and distant, the product of her mind. This, however, was different. It was immediate, external, and reverberated through her traitorous mind and heart. Another tear slipped past her defenses as she cursed whatever medications she'd been given that would cause her to hallucinate her dead lover this vividly. When it faded, it would be like losing him all over again.

"Breathe, Siha. You are not alone." A hand ghosted over her hair and the sensation was strange, as if her hair were now even shorter than before but the gentle pressure of the fingers with their fused center digits, the unique texture of smoothly scaled skin, the familiar pattern of the stroke over her scalp was so real that she imagined she could smell him and feel his presence beside her. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, unwilling to open them and find the room empty, as she grasped desperately to hold this moment in time even if it was simply a product of her drugged mind.

Silky, soft lips brushed over hers as his other beloved hand gently cupped her cheek and she responded with a soft sound of distress and longing as the last of her reserves left her and she wept openly. "Thane," she whispered pleadingly as sobs began to wrack her abused body.

"I am here, Siha. Open your eyes," he whispered.

She obeyed hesitantly and was rewarded with a pair of fathomless obsidian eyes in a beloved face crafted of emerald, ruby, and onyx. "You're dead," she whispered in return.

A flurry of emotions wrote themselves across his expressive face and his lips met hers again with a groan. "I am sorry, Shepard," he said against them. "I can never atone for the pain I have caused you. My wish was to spare you, not to increase your suffering."

"You're alive?" she asked weakly. "Where the hell have you been? Kolyat said you went back to Kahje to die! We held a memorial service for you. Your name is on the wall of the _Normandy_. You told me to meet you at the hospital but when I got there, you weren't and no one knew where you'd gone. Dr. Michel said you'd quit treatment. You'd just disappeared. I thought you were dead, Thane! I mourned for you. Where were you?" The questions forced themselves out of her like shards of glass against her tender throat until the last was little more than a hoarse whisper but she couldn't stop.

His hand remained on her face and his thumb stroked her cheek gently. Her pain was echoed in his eyes as he said, "I was on Kahje but not to die. While you were incarcerated, Mordin and Miranda approached me. They had collaborated with the hanar to find a cure for Kepral's Syndrome. Their assistance allowed a breakthrough but a cure was still too far away in my condition. I had rejected the proposal of a lung transplant before but when they informed me that the likelihood of surviving long enough to see it was high if I conceded to a transplant and survived the surgery, I agreed. I could not bear to leave you and Kolyat without knowing that I had exhausted all realistic options so I caught the next available transport to Kahje. I had thought to be able to return to the Citadel for treatment after the surgery and did not wish to burden you or Kolyat with worry, so I went in secret, but there were complications."

"What kind of complications?" she asked, bringing her hand up to thread through his, seeking confirmation of his presence.

"The disease had metastasized to other organs," he said. "Rather than a single transplant, I required several. I was kept under sedation between surgeries in order to speed recovery. By the time I was aware again, you were on your way to Horizon. I accessed vids of interviews you had done with the reporter on board the ship in an attempt to gauge your progress and emotional state. There was one from just before Thessia. You had permitted a celebration on board of what you thought was the key to the end of the war and allowed it to be disseminated."

He paused and his eyes became distant. "The mood is hopeful, faces bright with anticipation of victory. The mess hall has become a dance floor as people familiar and strange move their bodies in celebration. A sense of defiance colors their actions as though they are sending a message directly to the enemy that this is something that cannot be taken from them. My eyes search the screen for my Siha and there she is. She does not participate but watches in her customary manner. The smile on her face is warm, indulgent, happy. She leans into Garrus' embrace. Three fingers entwine with five and her head tilts back. Soft lips meet stiff. The motion is effortless and speaks of familiarity and comfort. I stop the vid and fall into memory."

Guilt washed over her, seeping into the sharp creases of her physical pain until she was a creature made entirely of misery and anguish. "I'm sorry, Thane," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

His brow creased and his head tilted in the expression that told her he was trying to discern her thoughts or motives. "Why?" he asked finally.

"I hurt you. I betrayed you. It doesn't matter that I thought you were dead. I had no right to jump straight into another's arms like that. I betrayed you," she said.

"No, Siha," he said gently. "It is I who have hurt you. I was glad that you found comfort in your trials. I had prayed to Kalahira to bring you hope when all seemed lost. She gave you Garrus, a man who knows you and has loved you from the very beginning, one whom you trust and have loved in return, one who would be there for you without question or hesitation to walk with you through the depths of hell itself and guide you through the dark because he had been there and overcome it with your guidance. You are not one to give your heart easily or cheaply. I have always known that he held a part of it and I was happy to see that he was safeguarding it."

"You aren't angry?" she asked.

"No, my warrior-angel," he said with a soft smile. "You have shared me generously and uncomplainingly with the memory of my wife for the duration of our relationship. You never expressed discomfort, anger, or jealousy when I would fall into memory of her and only pulled me from the more painful ones and simply asked that I try to be fully present with you when we were together. How could I be angry with you, my love, and wish that you go through all of that alone for my own selfish pleasure?"

Happiness replaced grief and guilt as her hand tightened on his. He was here. He was alive and he wasn't angry and he still loved her. His lips met hers again and the tears she shed were ones of joy. Their tongues met and she reveled in the heat and taste of him as desire warmed her blood. She arched seekingly and froze as pain and a sense of wrongness ransacked her body. Her gasp was one of pain rather than pleasure and he broke the kiss and reached over to press a button on one of the machines.

"Relax, Siha. The pain will ease in a moment. Breathe for me," he said soothingly. "Calm down, Shepard. You are safe."

Something was wrong with her body, deeply, inherently wrong. It was a wrongness that went beyond injury, the sense that something that should have been there wasn't anymore, a part of her that she took for granted and had not recognized the absence of until it should have performed its function and did not. A heel dug into the mattress of the stiff bed but its mate was simply not there. She tried to bend her knee but there was nothing to respond to her command. She swallowed down her panic and glanced down her body. The light blanket covering her draped awkwardly over her legs and that, too, was wrong.

"What happened to me?" she breathed as her mind was wrenched away from the stunned glory of his presence and thrown back into the unknowns of her current situation. "Where's my crew? The Reapers, are the Reapers--"

"Easy, Siha," he said firmly, tilting her head up to look into his eyes. "The Reapers are destroyed. You have prevailed. What crew was on Earth arrived a week ago. They survived and are here, on the remains of the Citadel, and will come when I summon them. I requested time to see you alone before the rest came. You were...you were badly injured, Shepard. You have been kept under sedation here at Huerta Memorial for three months. You required extensive treatment to remove your cybernetics, repair organs which were damaged, and replace the skin weave over most of your body due to the burns you received. Miranda and Dr. Michel felt that the pain of recovery from those would overwhelm your nervous system. You were discovered in the rubble near the Crucible and were trapped under concrete beams. Your pelvis, leg, and arm were shattered. The other leg was...it was crushed. The medical supplies that remained by the end of the war were minimal and it could not be saved. I am sorry, Siha."

"My leg is gone," she said and took a deep breath to try to steady herself. "And the _Normandy_?" she asked, fear suddenly gripping her. It only increased when he looked away.

"Missing," he said. "Your Admiral Hackett said that he received confirmation that they were falling back to the rendezvous point after the order was given. Joker refused the order at first but Major Alenko took command and he conceded. They never arrived. Do not lose hope, Siha. There is no sign of the ship between here and the relay or over Earth. They likely escaped the blast from the Crucible but were unable to make it to the rendezvous point for some reason. It is likely that they are already trying to get back to you."

She had prepared herself for the possibility of her own death. She'd been prepared to find the bar across the sea and wait there with Thane for Garrus to meet her. She had even been prepared for the possibility that they would go there together. The one option she had never considered was that he would die and she would live. It seemed too cruel a trick of fate to give her two great loves that would have taken lifetimes to fully appreciate and then take them both from her when they'd only just begun. The thought that Garrus could right now be up there waiting on her was more painful than being hit with Harbinger's laser.

Thane shed his leather jacket and climbed carefully onto the bed beside her. As carefully as if she were made from spun glass, he gathered her in his arms and laid her head on his shoulder. He held her and stroked a hand over her hair as he rumbled that soothing sound deep in his chest that had always brought her comfort. It reminded her of lying with Garrus as he performed a similar action. Garrus' hums and rumbles were smoother and more harmonic and his body was harder and more angular but the intent and result was the same. Once more, she was lying in the arms of one lover while grieving the loss of the other. This was so much harder, though, because she'd known that Thane would die. There had never been a time that she'd known him when his fate wasn't sealed. That he should be here now when Garrus was gone was something her mind struggled to accept.

The weight of his loss was the heaviest stone in a mountain of sorrow spanning back years. Her unit on Akuze, Nihlus, Jenkins, Ash, Mordin, Thane--for though he was alive, she had mourned his death--the batarians, EDI, Legion, the geth, Anderson, Tali, Joker, Samantha, the ensigns whose names she'd never learned but whose chatter had narrated the war when she'd gone into the war room. Karin, Ken, and Gabby who had survived the Collectors but not the end war itself. Garrus. She had bought victory but the cost was so damn high.

Losing Garrus was more inherently, viscerally wrong than her missing limb. They had been together from the start, had faced it all side by side, had walked into and out of hell and back in again. The only time of which she was consciously aware of being apart from him had been the few days between waking up on Lazarus station and finding him on Omega and again when she was locked up on Earth and he was on Palaven. _You were supposed to come back alive, too,_ her mind cried. _It's an awfully empty galaxy without you._

Thane held her through the storm. He kissed away her tears and made comforting sounds and motions on her back. He held her fists as she raged, not to protect him from her blows but to keep her from further injuring herself. His quiet voice was a soft counter to her screams of rage and pain and denial. And when she was finally drained out, he held her while she slept and kept the nightmares at bay. Her last words before sleep claimed her were, "I love you, Thane."


	2. Chapter 2

He called the crew the following day after she had eaten her first solid food--though she thought it gave some of Gardener's more suspect creations a run for their money--and been examined with Dr. Michel who then called in a prosthetist to begin fitting her for a new limb. Shepard remained numb throughout it all. Her listlessness put a damper even on her joy at Thane's presence just as Thane's purported death had dampened her joy with Garrus. She simply wasn't whole without them. With Garrus, however, she'd had purpose and a reason to function. While her love for them was all-consuming, Garrus was a part of her in a way that Thane was not simply because of their more limited time together and the breadth of her shared experiences with Garrus. There was no Shepard without Vakarian.

Thane sensed this but he was confident in his importance to her and her love for him. Their bond was different from what she had with Garrus but went just as deep into her spirit. He simply hated that she was troubled and despised seeing her pain. His own guilt got the better of him and, while they waited for the crew to arrive, he asked, "Was it like this when you thought that I was dead?"

She stared blankly at the ceiling and said dully, "In a way, this is worse. With you, I thought I had certainty that you were gone forever. With him, I don't know. I don't know if he's out there somewhere fighting to get back to me or if he's hurt or in danger or dead. If the ship wasn't destroyed and they were stranded instead of killed, he could still die. It takes months to cross star systems without the relays and they could be anywhere. Garrus and Tali only have the rations on board and would have to find somewhere with dextro food. They could starve to death. The _Normandy_ carries three months' supplies. It's been three months. Even if they've been carefully rationing, food and water would be dwindling by now. They may not have enough fuel to get somewhere running on FTL and there are no comm buoys left for them to call for help.  
"Garrus was hurt. He was...I've never seen him that badly injured even after Omega. I called the _Normandy_ in to extract him and Tali because I thought he'd die if I left him. And I may have signed his death warrant in doing so. If he's dead now, it's my fault. I should have known Joker would hesitate when the order came to fall back and ordered him to leave me behind.  
"I knew our time was limited, Thane. I knew that there would have to be life after you, even if it only lasted until the end of the war. I've never imagined life without him there in some capacity. You and I had no choice but to live in the present. We both knew our future had an end date. Garrus and I didn't have that. We dreamed. We made plans. We looked beyond the end of the war. We had a whole life figured out and we knew it was tentative but we knew it was possible."

"It is still possible, Siha," he said. "Dr. Chakwas is skilled and the med bay is fully capable of handling almost any injury received in the field. Almost every system has occupied planets in it and most of those will have dextro foodstuffs. There are also primarily dextro planets out there where they could hunt and gather. Water can be found throughout the galaxy and purified. Fuel can be obtained on any occupied planet. It may take time for them to return, but the comm buoys and relays are being repaired and, when they are, we will be able to get word from them." He rose from his chair and ran his fingers through her hair. "Do not allow yourself to disconnect, Siha. There is still hope. After all, I am here, am I not? You did not think that was possible, either."

"I'm sorry, Thane," she said miserably. "I should be celebrating with you. You're alive and that makes my heart sing. Please don't think I'm not happy about that or that I wish he was here instead of you. You're my heart, Thane."

"I know," he said with a smile. "And he is your soul. You are not completely Whole without us."

"You understand me so well," she said, placing her hand on his ruby cheek. "I don't deserve you."

"It is I who do not deserve you," he said.

The door opened and she looked over to see the members of her crew jostling each other to get into the room. Grunt pushed forward to the front and utterly shocked her by laying his massive head in her lap and beginning to shake hard enough to rattle the bed. It sent shards of pain spiking through her but she just laid her hand on the back of his head and let him get it out. She and Grunt were the closest each other had to mother and son. Wrex pushed up behind him and said, "Quit your mewling, boy. I told you Shepard would be fine." His gruff words were contradicted by the incredibly gentle tap of his brow plate to her forehead in imitation of the krogan headbutt. She recognized it as a sign respect and smiled.

When Grunt stood, Liara came over and very gently and carefully gathered her into her arms. "Shepard, you're awake."

"Hey, Lola, you look like shit!" Vega exclaimed but his fist bump was gentle.

"You're one to talk, Mr. Vega," Cortez said. "Don't listen to him, Commander. I'm glad you're going to be all right."

Jack pushed forward and punched her softly in the shoulder. "Don't ever fucking do that to us again, you hear me?"

Kasumi appeared on the opposite side of her and said, "Glad you're still with us, Shep."

"I am grateful as well," Samara said gently and copied Liara's hug. Shepard was surprised. Samara was not typically a physically affectionate person.

She looked over to see how Thane was handling the influx of people. He'd stepped back to the window and had his hands clasped behind his back in his customary pose. His face was serene with a hint of a smile and she reflected on how far he'd come from when she'd met him on Ilium. That man had been derisive, a loner, resolved to and even looking forward to death. It had taken her months to convince him to leave the Life Support room and mingle with the crew and he had not become fully comfortable even in a crowd of friends until after the Collector base. Now, he was alive, healthy, whole, and relaxed in a mixed group of strangers and friends.

A knock on the door drew her attention and she turned to look again. Surprise registered on her face as she caught sight of the lavender asari leaning almost negligently against the wall behind the newly-arrived Kolyat and Feron. She waved the drell in and looked at Thane. "Why is Aria skulking outside my door?"

He said, "She was here before anyone else who knew you. She stood guard outside your door until your crew arrived and then arranged them into a guard detail. Apparently, my presence was not sufficient to protect you from what enemies of yours may remain."

She absorbed that in surprise. Her relationship with Aria had always been a bit rocky and never easy to define even after she'd helped her retake Omega. She wouldn't have even considered the possibility that Aria could feel affection to her had the asari not watched over her when Shepard got shitfaced drunk and passed out after talking to Kolyat. Then there had been that kiss on Omega. Shepard had never looked at another female as attractive but she'd had to admit that had been hot. That didn't prepare her for the sight of Aria T'Loak standing guard outside her door.

Kolyat and Feron said hello and Kolyat went to stand by Thane while Feron went to Liara. The door opened again and Javik walked stiffly in. He cast a dismissive glance at the others before kneeling beside her bed with his head slightly bowed. "Commander, you have provided vengeance for my people. If ever you have need of me, you need only ask."

"Thank you, Javik," she said, touched by his sincerity.

"Thank you, Commander, for allowing me to be a part of your war and to see the end of it," he said and rose to stand by Liara.

Her crew stayed until her eyes began to grow heavy and Thane and Liara ushered them out with promises to come in smaller groups in the future. She enjoyed seeing them all together and was overjoyed that they had all survived but she could see the looks they gave around the room when one said something that would typically draw a quip from Garrus or a "Keelah!" from Tali. No one mentioned EDI or the missing crew but they hung over the room, conspicuous in their absence.

Before Kolyat left, Thane pulled him into a hug and said vehemently, "Thank you."

Kolyat said, "I am just glad that she will recover."

When he left, Shepard asked Thane about the exchange and he revealed to her that Kolyat and Feron had been the ones to discover her and dig her out of the rubble. Feron had been on the Citadel visiting Kolyat when the attack came and had jumped in to provide assistance. When word had come that Hammer Team had not made it to the beam, they'd gone themselves to open the ward arms for the Crucible. They'd continued fighting in the Presidium once she had opened the arms and, after the Crucible fired, went in search of the person who'd managed to get through. They'd suspected that it was her but hadn't known for sure.

Thane himself had gone to Earth when he'd received word that the Citadel had been moved there and that it was the location of the final battle. He'd been unable to find her so had given his support to the troops on the ground. He'd acquired a shuttle as soon as the battle was over and he'd determined that she was not among the bodies on the path to the beam. He'd been certain then that she'd made it and had flown to the damaged Citadel in search of her. Aria had been guarding her while Kolyat and Feron took turns sitting with her when they were not out searching for survivors.

She gestured for him to join her and he did, slipping in place beside her with a soft sigh as his arms went around her. "Do you feel better now that you have seen part of your family, Siha?"

"I do," she said. "It didn't feel right, though. Garrus, Tali, Joker, and Karin should be here. They've been with me through it all. They should have been here to celebrate the end. I don't think it will ever feel right without them here."

"They will come," he said. "If they are out there, they will come."


	3. Chapter 3

A month passed. Shepard reconnected with Thane. Her crew did their best to help keep her mind off of their missing members but their absence was as pronounced as that of the leg she'd lost above the knee. She was fitted with a prosthetic when Dr. Michel cleared her to get out of bed and begin moving around. Inactivity ate at her after years spent constantly on the move with downtime counted in hours or rare days rather than weeks. She worried about the _Normandy_ crew and pushed herself hard in her recovery, as determined to beat her injuries as she had been to defeat the Reapers.

Thane didn't shirk from any duty that could help her. He carried her to the restroom, helped her bathe--a novelty as he no longer needed to avoid humidity, change clothes, brush her hair. His arm, once hers in battle, was now there for support when she stood and took her first shaky, shuffling steps to the chair by the window. He talked Dr. Michel into allowing her to go outside one day and sit on a balcony in the artificial sunlight. He knew when to push and when to back off and allow her to do things for herself but treated every task with something akin to reverence.

He accepted her hopeful looks whenever the door to her room opened and his gentle touches when the entrant was not one of her missing crew were comforting. He encouraged her when her hope flagged, soothed her impatience both with the location of her ship and with her recovery, and showed his infinite patience when pain and frustration drove her to anger. He held her in the night when nightmares dragged her out of sleep reaching for a weapon or lashing out with her fists.

They existed in a sort of limbo with their days structured around her treatments and therapy and exercises, the continuation of his Kepral's treatments which were almost complete, and visits from her crew. She allowed Emily Wong to interview her one day as Allers was still on the _Normandy_. Shepard had always liked Emily better anyway and would have preferred to have her aboard the ship. Kolyat and Feron visited as often as the crew though they didn't stay as long. Thane told her they were afraid of slipping into solipsism and forcing her to sit through their account of events. She didn't think she was quite ready for that yet but told him that she wanted to do so when things weren't so raw.

Shepard had thought that there was something more than friendship between Liara and Feron, so it came as a complete surprise the day Liara presented her with the invitation to her bonding ceremony with Javik. They'd set it several months out both to give her time to fully recover and in the hopes of the missing crew returning in time to attend. Shepard wished them well and said to Liara with a rare smile, "Just think, you could end up being the mother to the first prothean child born in fifty thousand years. Did you ever imagine that when you were digging in your garden?"

She was ready to leave the hospital long before the doctor was willing to consent. She pressured Thane to look for an apartment either on the Citadel or on Earth. There weren't many left available but she was sure she'd be able to find something somewhere. He put her off so smoothly that she didn't recognize that he was doing it at first but when she called him on it, he gave her that blank, unreadable look that told her he wasn't going to budge. She began to suspect that his overprotective nature was in full force and that he was encouraging Dr. Michel to keep her in the hospital because he was afraid for her. She appreciated the concern but appreciating it didn't mean that it didn't irritate her all the same.

The week after Liara's invitation, Shepard finally snapped, "Damn it, Thane, I killed the Reapers, one of them with the mother of all thresher maws and another on foot. I destroyed the Collectors. I ended the genophage. I forged an alliance between the turians, krogan, and salarians and between the quarians and the geth. I saved the Citadel twice and the galaxy more times than I can count. I took a diving mech to the bottom of the Encompassing's malevolent older brother and spoke with Leviathan. I resisted indoctrination and killed my own clone after getting Garrus, Liara, and myself out of an iridium vault. I sent an asteroid into a mass relay. I survived the Battle of the Citadel, was killed and brought back to life, survived the trip through the Omega 4 relay, survived countless battles against everything from mercenaries and husks to Reapers, and survived getting blown up by the goddamn Crucible. I am Commander Fucking Shepard and I want out of this goddamn hospital today! So you go and tell Dr. Michel that she can either release me or I will AMA my happy ass out of here. I want a real meal and a real bed and clothing that doesn't show my ass to the galaxy when I stand up. I have been patient. I have been cooperative. And I have been here for over four fucking months. You of all people should understand not wanting to be chained to a bed by tubes and wires. Get. Me. Out. Of. Here."

Thane raised a brow at her outburst and said mildly, "I quite enjoy seeing your ass when you stand up."

She sighed, "I'm serious, Thane. I want to go home. I don't care where home is as long as you are there and we are not here but I want to go there now."

"I will make the arrangements," he said and activated his omni-tool. He sent a series of messages that she couldn't see and then came to sit beside her. "We need to talk, Shepard."

His face was as serious as she'd ever seen it and had taken on that closed look that she knew so well but still couldn't interpret. Anxiety spiked and her breaths became short and quick. He was leaving. He wasn't going to go with her. He really couldn't handle her feelings for Garrus. He didn't want her anymore. He'd changed his mind. She couldn't give him what he needed. She was battered and broken and no longer the fierce warrior angel he'd fallen in love with. He was intelligent and beautiful and kind and a man who could get any woman he wanted and she was a one-legged, scarred human with nothing left to offer and not even a place to live. "You're leaving," she said and couldn't keep the desolation from her voice.

His expression shifted to concern and he framed her face in his hands. "Why would I leave, Siha?" She relayed her thoughts and he shook his head firmly. "No. Never say that. You are the savior of the galaxy. You are the avatar of Arashu herself. I will love you for as long as I draw breath and I will remain by your side for as long as you allow it. You are not a self-conscious person. Why would that be your first thought?"

"When a human male says, 'We need to talk,' to his significant other, a breakup almost always follows," she said.

"I see. Then I will never use that phrase with you again," he promised. "Would it be more acceptable to say that there is something we need to discuss?"

"Yes," she said with a sigh of relief.

His lips pressed reassuringly to hers and he sat back on his heels. "You said before that we had been forced to live only in the present due to my illness. That is no longer the case. Our life together no longer has an end date counted in mere months. You said that you had dreamed, planned, and looked beyond with Garrus. I would like to know if those dreams and plans could be extended to include me. I do not wish to take you from him when he returns. I simply wish to be a part of it and of you. My arm is yours as is my heart for as long as I live but I must know if I am simply filling a void that will cease to exist upon his return in order to prepare myself for that eventuality."

Her face softened as she heard the self-doubt in his voice. "Oh, sweetheart, no. You are not just a stopgap or a fallback. I understand how you could think that but I love you, Thane. I haven't let myself think beyond him walking in the door because I don't know what his reaction to this will be. In a way, I feel like I'm betraying him as much as I felt I was betraying you even though you and I came before he and I did. I am terrified that he is going to ask me to choose between you and I don't know if I can do that. I don't know which one of you I would choose. It would...I can't...I don't..." She broke off at the thought of having to lose one or the other.

"He loves you selflessly, Siha. He may attempt to withdraw out of respect for what we have but he will not ask you to make a choice that will rip you apart and if you bid him to stay, he will stay. Garrus Vakarian has followed you into hells beyond imagining and yet you think that this would be what made him run? No, love. He will stay if that is what you wish. I am asking what you want, Shepard. You have given everything to everyone for years. You have earned the opportunity for happiness."

"I can't remember the last time anyone asked what I wanted," she said softly. "I don't know... Yes, I do. I want my apartment on the Strip back and I want to live there with you and Garrus. I want my crew all around me. I want to remain a Spectre but only a Spectre. I've worked with an interspecies team for years and brought together an intergalactic fleet. I can't go back to placing my loyalties with humanity first. My loyalty is to the galaxy as a whole. I want to take the _Normandy_ to fight normal, boring enemies on normal, boring missions and, when we decide to retire, I want to buy a house in the tropics and another in the desert and raise beautiful adopted drell and turian babies together."

Thane cocked his head to the side and said with a hum, "I will agree to that on one condition."

"What?" she asked.

"That we also adopt a human girl who will look like her mother or, if you would prefer, find a human male donor and have her yourself. I can assure you that if she is yours, both Garrus and I would love her regardless of the other half of her DNA."

She pictured herself ensconced in her apartment with both Garrus and Thane as she grew large with a child that, while unrelated to them by genes, would be theirs all the same. She laughed and said, "That would be the most over-protected little girl in the entire galaxy."

Thane smiled at that and said, "And, this time, I will be there."

"Yes, you will," she said, though all of this was, of course, contingent on Garrus coming home and accepting the arrangement. She felt slightly selfish for wanting to keep them both but, if they consented, it was the only option that made her feel complete.

The door opened and her heart leapt. She tried to hide her disappointment when it was Wrex. He laughed and said, "It's all right, Shepard. We all know you're waiting for him. I hear you're ready to make a break for it."

"I am losing my mind in here," she said. "It feels like being locked up at Alliance HQ for all those months, though with admittedly better company."

"Hey! I heard that!" Vega said from behind Wrex.

"No offense, Vega," she laughed, "but you just aren't my type of eye candy."

He walked into the room and flexed his muscles with a twinkle in his eye. "Come on, Lola. You can't tell me this doesn't get your engine running."

"Impressive," she said, "but no."

He shrugged. "That's all right. Cortez loves me."

"I do," Cortez said, coming in and placing a bag on her bed. "I won't take yours if you don't take mine. Deal, Commander?"

"Deal," she laughed. "What is that?"

"Real clothes," he said.

"Oh, gods, Steve, I could kiss you," she exclaimed. To her surprise, that earned a low growl from Thane. She grinned at him and said, "He wouldn't like it. Cortez is gay, honey."

"I apologize," Thane said. "That was rude."

She took the bag from the bed and carried it into the washroom. Her sigh of relief was audible as she drew out a pair of cargo pants and a fitted shirt along with an N7 hoodie like the one she used to wear when off duty. Liara was her hero. She changed as quickly as she could with the still awkward appendage affixed to her thigh and ran a brush through her hair. Liara had included makeup as well and, though she rarely wore it, she applied a light dusting over her cheeks and eyes and smoothed the tinted lip balm onto lips that were always dry when she was convalescing. Looking in the mirror, she decided that the color it added to her face made her look like a real person again. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles and felt more like herself than she had in months.

The clothing had the added benefit of covering her scars. The ones left by her reconstruction remained on the skin that had been able to recover and were joined by fresher ones from the replacements that had to be done. Her body was a patchwork of scars and shimmery skin in hues ranging from silvery to muted pink. It was better than the angry red it had once been but she would never again be considered conventionally attractive, especially with the prosthetic leg. With all of that hidden by clothing, however, and the minimal damage to her face since her arms had protected it from the flames, she looked like herself once more.


	4. Chapter 4

The doctor came in and cleared her to leave and then the group of them piled into a shuttle as there were too many for a skycar. She leaned back against the seat and looked over at Cortez. "This brings back so many memories. You're the best damn shuttle pilot I've ever met and I have thanked the Alliance more times than I can count for assigning you to me. We wouldn't have won this war without you there to pull our asses out of the fire and get us safely in and out under circumstances that would make a lesser man tremble in fear."

"Thank you, Commander," he said with a smile.

"I'm going to miss you," she told him.

"You're leaving the Alliance," he said matter-of-factly. When she nodded, he said, "I suspected as much. I put in my resignation last week. I'm afraid you're stuck with me now."

"How did you know?" she asked.

"Hell, Shepard. We all know. You'd go crazy if you tried to retire this young but after saving the whole galaxy, none of us can see you going back to running errands for Admiral Hackett or answering to the defense committee. You'll keep the _Normandy_ , stay a Spectre, and answer only to the Council who, as it happens, now trust you implicitly and likely aren't going to do much more than aim you at a problem and let you go."

"I hope you're right," she said.

"I know I am," he said and then lowered his voice. "Vega and I have discussed it. He's going to be coming to you about Spectre training. If you don't want to train him or don't think he's ready, then he'll stay with the N7 program and no hard feelings. Either way, I'll remain with your crew if you'll have me."

"I'd love that, Steve," she said certainly. "And I'll think about Vega and have an answer ready for him when he does come to me. Normally, I'd say he isn't ready. He hasn't even technically been through the N7 program. But this war changed a lot of things and he made me proud. So, yeah, I'll think about it. We're going to need to build our ranks back up anyway and I have the best damn crew in the galaxy."

"That's because we have the best damn commander in the galaxy," he said.

"It won't be commander for long," she said and then laughed. "Though I doubt I'll ever fully get away from it. Commander might as well be my first name now."

Vega walked forward and leaned over her seat. "So, Lola, what is your first name, anyway?"

She grinned slyly at him and said, "Wouldn't you love to know?"

"Does anybody?" he asked.

"Thane, Garrus, Liara, Karin, Miranda, and Hackett," she answered. "Hackett knows because he's my superior officer. Miranda knows everything about me because she put me back together. Karin has my medical records. Thane saw it on my chart. Liara got it from the mind meld. Garrus conned it out of me the night of the party between rigging the whole place to blow with Zaeed and reciting the elements with Sam, Jack, and Tali."

"I still can't believe they knew all of them," Cortez said. "Man, what a fun night."

"We'll do it again when the rest get home," Vega said confidently. "Show Thane here what a real _Normandy_ party looks like complete with Shepard dancing."

"Vega, I couldn't dance before I lost my leg," she said wryly.

"I dunno, Lola," he drawled. "Looked like you and Garrus moved pretty well together that one night. That. Was. Hot."

Her gaze flickered back to Thane, looking to see if he reacted negatively to the casual reference. He tilted his head and said, "You danced, Siha?"

Vega said, "She tangoed. When Garrus bribed me to set it up, I thought he'd gone loco. I made him promise me three times he wasn't setting her up as a joke."

"Wait," she said, "he planned that? I thought it was a spur of the moment thing."

Vega and Cortez burst into laughter and Vega said, "Oh, hell, no. He saw it on a vid somewhere and came to us for lessons. He spent the week before shore leave down in the shuttle bay dancing around with Steve while I taught 'im. Swore us to secrecy. Funniest thing I've ever seen in my life."

Cortez reached over and patted her leg when she gave a watery smile at the image he'd painted. That was such a Garrus thing to do. He'd probably been doing research on human romantic customs and come across dancing as one of them. And, being Garrus, he'd have made damn sure he knew what he was doing before trying it. That explained how he'd managed to be so suave about the whole thing. She'd already known he could move. He was all long limbs and predatory grace. It probably hadn't taken much to translate that into a new dance.

She said, "I hope wherever this new place you're taking me is that it's big enough to hold everybody if we're going to try to repeat that party."

Cortez set the shuttle down smoothly and Thane took Vega's place behind her. "Siha, I would like for this to be a surprise. Do you trust me?"

"Of course," she said, casting a curious look up at him. He gently placed a piece of cloth over her eyes and tied it around her head. "A blindfold? Seriously?" she laughed. This was so very Thane. Of course he would want to ensure the perfect presentation of their new home. She wasn't expecting much out of it as so much of the residential area of the Citadel had been damaged and housing was at a premium with the number of people stranded in the Sol system waiting for the relays to be repaired.

Thankfully, the quarians had left their civilians on Rannoch and converted their liveships into dreadnoughts, so they had the ability to produce enough dextro food to supply the turians indefinitely when their own rations ran out. Most soldiers had elected to remain on their ships but the ones that had been on ships too badly damaged to support them and the ground troops had taken up temporary residence on Earth and the Citadel. That, however, meant that housing was incredibly hard to find since the Citadel had already been overtasked with refugees. Most of those who'd died in the final battle were from areas that had been damaged, so it evened out with more people than there were accommodations. Every residence was expected to house as many as they had room for and people who still had homes had opened their doors to strangers without question. She would likely be living with at least some of her crew for some time, though that prospect didn't bother her in the least.

Thane surprised her again by lifting her into his arms. She wasn't sure if it was a romantic gesture or simply an expedient and protective one as she still didn't have full control of her new leg even when she had the use of her vision. Knowing Thane, it was a bit of both. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head against his muscular chest. The lack of sight sharpened her other senses and his scent of leather and spice wrapped around her and she heard the beat of his heart and the smooth movement of breath in his lungs. She didn't think she would ever get tired of the simple pleasure of listening to him breathe without restriction and said so.

He hummed in his chest and said, "It is quite a luxury for me as well, Siha. You are welcome to listen as often and for as long as you would like."

She felt them begin to rise. An elevator. That meant it was an apartment. It wasn't much of a surprise as most of the housing on the Citadel consisted of high-rise apartments. Very, very few had the luxury of an actual house here due to the population density. She'd spent her entire adult life aboard ships surrounded by people. A house would probably feel too empty to her now. She honestly didn't care where they lived. It was enough for now that they lived. She only wished that Garrus was there as well. Gods, she missed him.

A door opened and he stepped in and placed her on her feet. She sensed bodies in the room and decided that her crew must have come for the unveiling. It was right that they be here to mark the new chapter in her life with her. She smiled as she tried to identify a familiar sound coming from across the room. Thane's hands stroked her hair before he carefully untied the cloth and pulled it away. She froze in shock and felt her knees buckle.

He was across the room in an instant and his arms wrapped around her and caught her before Thane could even react. She gave a strangled cry and threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his stiffer ones. His arm banded around her waist, pulling her closer, and she felt his talons slide across her scalp as his hand tangled in her hair. She could feel the wild rumble in his chest as his subharmonics went haywire and his long tongue swept into her mouth. Almost a year of practice made the gesture natural even though it was something turians didn't do. As with everything else he devoted himself to, he did it very well.

"Shepard," he breathed and pressed his forehead against hers. His blue eyes drank her in as his hands roamed over her as if reassuring himself that she was real.

Her own hands wrapped around his waist and tears began to fall again. She'd never considered herself a weepy person. She hadn't cried when Earth or Palaven or Thessia had fallen or when Mordin or Ash had died. She hadn't even cried when Kolyat had told her he thought Thane had returned to Kahje to die, though that was more because the pain was simply too deep and too shocking for tears. She had choked up during his memorial and cried when she'd watched his vid messages that he'd sent while she was on Earth but those had been the only tears she'd shed since she was a child. Now, however, it seemed that they fell at every opportunity. She refused to be ashamed of them. Gods knew she'd built enough of them up over the past few years.

She didn't know how long they stood there locked in each other's arms but no one around them complained or tried to rush them. She cupped his scarred mandible in her hand and finally composed herself enough to say softly, "Garrus. I thought you were dead."

His mandibles flared into a grin and he said, "You know me. I'm hard to kill. Kind of like a certain Spectre I know." She choked out a teary laugh at that and rubbed her forehead against his, telling him in his own language how glad she was that he was alive and home and here with her. He reciprocated, marking her with his scent. He whispered, "I love you, Shepard."

"I love you, too, Garrus. Gods, I've missed you. I was so worried about all of you. I was afraid I'd never see you again."

"It was touch and go for a while," he said, "but we pulled together and made it. I'll tell you all about it. I want to hear what happened here, too. But for now I think there are some other people who want to see you."

He pulled back and Tali rushed over and hugged her tightly. The sound she'd heard before had been her air filter and Shepard wondered how she hadn't immediately identified it. She said, "Keelah, Shepard, the last we saw of you was Harbinger's laser heading straight toward you. Garrus lost his mind. It took four of us to restrain him until Hackett announced that you'd made it to the Citadel and had opened the arms for the Crucible. We didn't want to leave you behind. I thought he was going to kill Kaidan and Joker once he was able to move again."

Kaidan said, "So did I. I'm sorry, Shepard. Hackett ordered us to fall back. I took over with Garrus incapacitated and did what I thought you would want us to do."

Shepard accepted and returned his hug and said, "You did the right thing."

"Hardest call I've ever had to make," he said in his smoky voice. Once, she would have been irritated by the emotion lacing the words but they'd repaired their friendship to the point that she knew now that it was actually friendship and not remnants of the infatuation that had had him trailing her around the _Normandy_ like a lost varren pup and then lashing out at her after her resurrection.

She pulled away and felt her throat close as she turned to Joker. She'd avoided looking at him as she hadn't wanted to see the hate and misery in his eyes. He met her flinching gaze with his customary smart-ass grin and she faltered in confusion. Her confusion only grew when EDI walked out from the bar area. "EDI?" she asked in a choked voice.

"Hello, Shepard," the AI said.

"But you're...but how...you...the Crucible..." she stammered.

EDI nodded in understanding and said, "I anticipated the probability that the Crucible would send out a pulse of some sort and that anything capable of destroying the Reapers might also be able to destroy me. I copied myself and partitioned it off prior to the Crucible's activation and left instruction for Tali on reactivating me. My body required some repair but my runtimes were successfully reinstalled. You are no longer the only one to have survived death."

Shepard didn't care that EDI's body was metal or that her systems didn't assign value to displays of physical affection. She limped over to her as quickly as she could and wrapped her arms around the AI's unyielding form. It wasn't much different from hugging Garrus in full armor. "I felt so guilty. I thought I'd killed you. The Catalyst told me that the Crucible would destroy all synthetics and I almost didn't do it but the only other options weren't options at all. We couldn't beat them conventionally. We'd always known that. Controlling them was the idea they'd used to seduce the Illusive Man and I had the results of that option in front of me. I'm not stupid enough to think that kind of power wouldn't have eventually corrupted me if it even worked and didn't just turn me into a husk. Combining organic and synthetic was the promise they'd made to Saren and I saw firsthand what that meant. They hadn't hesitated to use him. You'd have all been slaves. There was no other choice, EDI. Please forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive, Shepard," she said, returning the hug. "I told you that I would risk non-functionality. I meant it. However, that did not mean that I would not make an effort to preserve myself. From the reports I accessed on your condition, you did not ask anything of me that you were not willing to give yourself."

Joker said, "Yeah, but Commander? Next time we go to war, try not to kill my girlfriend, all right? That sucked ass."

"He was a mess," Karin said as she scanned her with her omni-tool. Ever the doctor, Shepard thought. "You were very fortunate, Commander. How has the adjustment period been?"

"It was tough at first," she said, ignoring the curious looks from the newly arrived crew. She needed to tell Garrus first. They had a lot to talk about, in fact.

"I can imagine," Karin said but read the slight shake of her head and hugged her gently without elaborating. Sam, Ken, and Gabby followed suit.

Shepard looked around her apartment in wonder. She'd been so focused on the people that she'd barely registered the location. "How is this possible?" she asked. The row of windows had been replaced by kinetic barriers and the scent of smoke still lingered. Most of Anderson's artwork was missing and the piano was propped up on one leg by a small table. The couch had been replaced. All in all, though, it was remarkably unscathed.

"The Strip suffered only minimal damage," Liara said. "We didn't want to tell you until the doctor had cleared you because we thought you would insist on being released before you were ready and we needed time to clean it up."

Thane said, "I purchased two floors of the building when I learned of your apartment here. I thought that you would wish your crew close by and knew that accommodations would be scarce after the war. It was a wise investment as there is just enough room for everyone here."

"How long have you been here?" she asked Garrus.

"Long enough to get cleaned up and change into fresh clothing," he answered. "Our water reserves were running low by the end and sonic showers only do so much."

Joker laughed and said, "Yeah, my baby needs a thorough cleaning. It was getting pretty bad."

Garrus, whose sense of smell was stronger than the others', shuddered and said, "It was awful. Anyway, we got word to Liara since your omni-tool seems to be broken and she told us to meet you here because you were being released today." Shepard returned to him. She couldn't keep her hands off of him any more than she had been able to do with Thane when he'd made his reappearance. She'd spent countless hours tracing the planes and ridges of his face in the hospital. She stood on tiptoe and Garrus bent down to place his forehead against hers again. He said quietly, "It was worth it. Spirits, Shepard, I thought I'd never see you again."

"So did I," she said. "And speaking of people you thought you'd never see again, you all seem awfully calm about Thane standing here. I'm not imagining him, am I?"

Garrus laughed and said, "Liara briefed us." He bent his head further and whispered in her ear, "I don't care if you two are back together. I'm still right behind you for as long as you want me."

"Oh, thank god," she said on an explosive sigh.

He kissed the side of her neck and said, "I've always known you still loved him just as I knew you loved me. The only thing this changes as far as we are concerned is that hopefully that bleakness in your eyes will finally go away. That is, if you still want me and I'm pretty sure that kiss earlier met the protocol for reunions. At least, with an audience involved."

She smiled widely and said, "Yeah, it did. I'm afraid I'm not recovered enough yet for anything much more involved but I have...incentive."

"Definitely," he said with a grin.

"There are things I need to tell you, but I want to wait until we're alone," she said.

He knew her too well. He drew back and looked her in the eye as he said softly, "Things that have to do with that new limp and adjustment periods?" When she nodded, he stroked a knuckle down her cheek. "Oh, Shepard. I'm sorry I wasn't here to help."

"I told you to duck," she said.

"I tried to improvise," he said. "It was a big truck."

She swayed slightly and he picked her up and carried her to the couch where he placed her across his lap. She curled into his chest and breathed deeply. He smelled like rich soil after a hard rain with a hint of iron or copper below. It was the scent of comfort and safety and, when Thane's leather and spice came to join them as he sat down beside her, of home. The others talked around them, giving them space, and she put one arm around his neck and took Thane's hand in hers with the other after he'd stretched her legs over his own lap. He asked softly, "Are you happy, Siha?"

She looked around her home with all of her family gathered together in one place and then at her heart and soul and said honestly, "I'm happier than I've ever been."

They both said together, "Good."

"I need to see my ship," she said suddenly.

Garrus said, "I was wondering when that was coming. You get antsy when you're away from the _Normandy_ for too long."

She looked up at him and said, "I know you just got off of it but will you go with me?"

He nuzzled her hair and said, "Shepard, the _Normandy_ is as much my home as it is yours. Being stranded on the ship wasn't the problem. Being stranded without you was. Of course I'll come."


	5. Chapter 5

Everyone went to the ship. Shepard paused on the observation deck and leaned against the railing as she'd done so many times before to drink in the sight of her ship. The _Normandy_ was a work of art. Every one of her sleek lines and curves were familiar and precious to her. Love for that ship welled up beside pride and was almost enough to undo her. This was the ship that had carried her through the stars, through asteroid belts and impossible relays and into the core of the galaxy itself. This was the ship that had brought her, an orphan raised on the streets, family and friendship and love. Every single person she cared about was in some way tied to this ship. The _Normandy_ had been weapon and comfort and refuge and home. She had held criminals and soldiers and politicians bearing the weight of their people and had embraced them all. She was so much more than a ship. She was a symbol.

Garrus sighed wistfully beside her and she leaned her head against his shoulder as she took Thane's hand. Garrus looked down at her and said, "The last time we stood like this...I have to admit I thought it really would be the last time."

"So did I," she said.

"It's been a hell of a ride," he said, echoing his words from that day. "The best times of my life were on that ship."

She said, "When I look at the _Normandy_ , I understand what turians mean by spirits. She's the spirit of us, of all of us."

His mandibles flared and his arm went around her shoulders as it had countless times before. "Yes," he said. "Yes, she is."

Shepard sensed movement behind her and looked over her shoulder to see a crowd gathered on the docks. They filled the observation lounge that had been converted into a memorial room during the war and spilled over onto the deck, spanning the length of it. Alliance soldiers, turians, asari, krogan, salarians, they all stood side by side together. When the crew turned to face them, the crowd began to cheer and clap and whistle. She heard her name and her ship's name being chanted and pride swelled within her. She straightened and stood at attention before bringing her fingers to her forehead in a tight salute. Around her, her human crew followed suit. The Alliance soldiers returned the salute and she broke it off with a wide grin.

The crew turned and filed through the airlock into the ship behind her. She went to the CIC and climbed the steps to the galaxy map. Her legs were shaky from exhaustion and her hands gripped the railing tightly but her stance was proud as her crew gathered in front of her with Garrus in his spot behind and to her right and Thane in his behind and to her left. She examined each of their faces, beholding the pride and warmth and confidence she saw there. She looked especially at her original crew, remembering the first time that she saw them and thinking of how far they'd come.

Joker, once xenophobic and embittered with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, proudly stood shoulder to shoulder with the AI he loved and the aliens that were his brothers-in-arms. He and Karin were the only ones who had been with her from the very first, who'd seen everything from Eden Prime to the firing of the Crucible. Kaidan who, unlike Garrus, couldn't even see gray and only saw the world in black and white, who had been first her shadow and then her biggest detractor, with whom she'd had to fight so hard to gain true trust, who'd lacked for confidence but not conviction, was now the second human Spectre, a good, strong man in his own right, and a loyal friend. Wrex, the former bounty hunter who hadn't cared about anything beyond his next paycheck and had wanted nothing to do with any of the rest of the crew was now a leader of his people and the drive behind the cure of the greatest insult inflicted upon his people in millennia. Tali, a child on her Pilgrimage, innocent of the workings of the galaxy, blindly loyal to her people and desperate for her homeworld, was now an admiral of the largest fleet in the galaxy, had helped win back the homeworld her people had lost, had helped end a war with her people's creations, and now called an AI friend. Liara, another innocent child whose obsession with a dead race had isolated her from the living and left her naive and vulnerable, was now one of the most feared and powerful people in the galaxy. She was confident and capable and loyal almost to a fault. Shepard only regretted being unable to see Liara as a matriarch.

Garrus, her precious Garrus. Also innocent, but with just enough experience to make him headstrong and brash and convince him that he could fix the world given enough leeway and ammunition. He'd been all burning passion and unwavering conviction. He'd thrived under her leadership and followed her steadfastly, drinking in her lessons like they were sustenance. She recalled the dossier the Shadow Broker had kept on him that postulated that he would never be able to reach his potential while overshadowed by her and gave a mental shake of her head. He'd been broken and forged anew in the fires of adversity and he'd learned to stand on his own. Once an outcast among his people and convinced that he wasn't a very good turian, he had advised a Primarch and coordinated a fleet. A leader in his own right now, he was her equal and her partner and the shadow he cast was larger than life itself.

Her gaze shifted to the crew who'd followed her on a suicide mission without hesitation. Gabby and Ken, young and bubbly and full of hope, now strong and confident on their own. Zaeed, once bitter and angry, now loyal and hopeful. Kasumi, naive and romantic, an outcast by choice who'd lived her life in the shadows, watching the world from the protection of her cloak, now stood boldly in their midst and was a part of them. Jacob, stiff and withdrawn but with an inherent kindness and compassion that even Reapers and Collectors had not touched, was probably the one who'd changed the least of all of them and that, too, was a feat. Jack, angry, isolated, mean and hateful and vicious, spiteful and cruel, a whirlwind of venom and sharp edges who'd violently shoved away any who tried to get close, was now a leader and a teacher, a part of a team, one of a family, and one of the most loyal friends anyone could ever hope to have. Miranda, cold and aloof, beautiful and capable with a deep-rooted lack of self-esteem kept hidden beneath a wall of icy reserve, unquestioningly devoted to a xenophobic terrorist was now warm and confident and utterly devoted to the sister she'd worked so hard to save and the rainbow drell she'd once disdained. Samara, a justicar with the weight of guilt and the lives her daughter had taken on her shoulder, tasked with the self-imposed duty that no mother should ever have to bear, devoted utterly to her Code, holding herself apart from the galaxy she'd sworn to defend. Now a loving mother and still hesitant friend. Grunt, once described as a dangerous paperweight, born into the world not of a mother but a tank and a mad scientist, uncertain of his place in the world but sure of his anger was now a leader among his own people, a fearless fighter devoted to a cause and a clan, and the son she'd never had.

Thane. Her eyes misted as she gazed at him. Cold, haughty, disdainful, a master of killing and deception, a wasted vessel of hunger and death and lies. Alone, not only resolved to his death but moving purposefully toward it, convinced that his life had no meaning. Sold into essential slavery by his own parents as a child, he'd had no background for love or family and had failed when he'd dared to reach out for it with the wrong person. Shepard had no doubt that Irikah had been a wonderful, exceptional woman who had loved him deeply and tried her hardest to teach him to love in return but that did not mean that she had been the right person at the right time for him. Teaching hearth and home to a man who'd known only violence and death and abandonment was not a task for someone who'd lived life in the light and could not understand the darker sides of his nature. He'd reached for something he hadn't known how to hold and had broken it and, in doing so, had broken himself. When she had found him, he'd been a disconnected shell, a husk of who he could be. He'd held a deep-seated rage that had roiled below his calm surface, bubbling up to disturb the placid stillness only to sink back to the depths again. He'd faced that failure and that anger and had conquered it with her by his side. He hadn't needed her help to stop Kolyat; he'd wanted it to face his demons. He'd gone from embracing a suicide mission to risking his life in order to live, to remain by her side and correct his mistakes with his son, to bring her hope in the darkness. He stood now, surrounded by friends he'd never imagined, a whole person once more, sound in body and mind and spirit. He caught her gaze and inclined his head in his familiar gesture of acknowledgement.

Sam stood at her terminal and the sight of her there was simply right. Shepard remembered how nervous and intimidated she'd been at first. _Some of your friends are legends. I can't just go up and ask if they tried the hummus._ She'd fit in with the crew in a way that Kelly Chambers had never been able to do and had saved the _Normandy_ with a toothbrush. She'd lost her fear and now held herself with the confident assurance that she belonged. Cortez, once tormented and broken-hearted over the loss of his husband, now glowing with the light of love and family and home. Steve had a special place in her heart brought about by his unfailing kindness and generosity of spirit. His quiet confidence had strengthened her courage more times than she could count and his accepting nature made her comfortable with him even at her worst. 

Vega, cocky, arrogant, brash in his own way. He'd been her guard while she was in lockup with the Alliance, handpicked by Anderson due to his unflagging support of her even in the face of accusations and wild rumors. She'd thought at first that he was nothing more than another beefcake grunt, all style and vanity with no substance. Even after she'd learned that was not the case, he still continued to surprise her with his intellect, his intuitiveness, and his skill. Vega played loose on the surface but internalized deeply and was far more serious than he let on. He didn't shy away from making the tough calls required of the job but didn't make them easily. He'd integrated seamlessly into an interspecies crew. She was half-convinced that all of the time he'd spent down in the holding docks among the refugees losing his shirt in poker had been deliberate. He was a card shark and tough to beat with his crew but she'd never seen him win a single hand in the docks. She'd thought at first that he was blowing his paychecks and had ribbed him mercilessly about it but he'd just shrugged it off. Many of the refugees were too proud to accept a handout even when they'd lost everything but they weren't too proud to take his money when they won it. He'd had food, shelter, clothing, and everything he needed provided to him. He'd kept enough for the occasional trip to Purgatory but everything else he had had gone to the refugees in the guise of being a shitty poker player. She grinned and decided that, yes, he would make a fine Spectre.

EDI had, perhaps, come the farthest of all from a rogue VI on Luna to a person in her own right. Shepard had been somewhat suspicious of her at first, seeing her as a pawn of the Illusive Man set to spy on them, and Joker had flat out hated her. Watching her grow and change and form into someone she could call friend and viewed as absolutely and irrevocably alive had been one of the highlights of Shepard's new life. She remembered Legion's final question, _Does this unit have a soul?_ and could answer that of EDI with a resounding yes. There was no question in her mind.

They were all looking expectantly at her and she choked back the well of emotion that rose up within her. Commander Shepard, perhaps the greatest speaker of the twenty-second century, whose speeches had become famous and the recordings of which had been streamed across the galaxy, who'd rallied a galaxy to her cause and brought an end to conflicts thousands of years old, looked at her crew and words failed. She said haltingly, "I love you guys. You have stood beside me through the end of the world as we know it. You never doubted me even when I doubted myself. You've followed me into the unknown more times than I can count when even I didn't know if I could bring you back out again. You've given me something that I've never had before: a family. I would die for each and every one of you."

"We know," Joker said, solemn for once.

Tali said, "We love you, too, Shepard," and the rest, even Wrex and Grunt, chorused their agreement.

She grinned and said, "All right, let's go see what you've done to my ship."

She followed Joker up to the cockpit while he described attempting to outrun the blast, how they'd missed the rendezvous point and ended up somewhere near Palaven stranded on a garden world. He gave her damage reports and then Kaidan stepped up and described the events that had transpired from the firing of the Crucible to today. They'd been given the order to fall back, but Joker had been unwilling to leave her behind and had resisted the order. Garrus had railed over the comm from the med bay for Moreau to belay that order and turn the ship around and take him back until Dr. Chakwas was forced to sedate him. With her XO incapacitated, Kaidan had been the next in line and had taken over. He'd gotten Joker to get them out of the Sol system and through the relay but they'd been hit by the blast and EDI's systems had fried. Joker hadn't expected to lose his copilot and had his momentary panic as EDI had slumped over beside him had caused him to overshoot his goal and they'd crash landed.

The drive core and the navigation system had been damaged in either the blast or the crash and they'd been forced to live on the ship while Tali, Engineer Adams, Ken, and Gabby worked on repairs. Fortunately, the _Normandy_ 's cargo bay held duplicates of most of the necessary parts for the ship and they were able to jury rig the ones they didn't have. Once Garrus had sufficiently recovered, he'd resumed command and had ordered rationing of food and water, duty rotations, and teams to scout and do recon of the area in search of food, water, resources, or indigenous people. They hadn't known if the Crucible had worked, so he'd formed a guard detail as well.

When they were not working on the ship, Sam and Tali had worked on EDI. Joker had all but lived in the AI core until she was repaired. Once she was up and running again, she added her assistance to the repairs of the navigation systems and they'd been able to figure out where they were. She'd scanned the planet for resources and they'd all been grateful when she'd found rich eezo deposits. Garrus had sent out the mining team and they'd collected enough that, with a stop at Palaven to refuel once the ship was in the sky again, they were able to begin the long journey home. What had taken only an instant with the relay had taken months at FTL.

"And here we are," Kaidan said. "You'd have been proud of Garrus, Commander. There were still some lingering resentments toward me among some of the crew so I didn't mind stepping back down and letting him take over. He did it well. He's a good leader. He never doubted that we could get back home and he made all of us believe it as well."

"I am very proud of Garrus," she said. "I'm proud of all of you."

Her next stop was to the crew deck. Her eyes fell on the memorial wall when the door opened and she strode to it with a surety that she hadn't felt since gaining her new leg. With a fierce grin, she reached out and slid the plaque with Thane's name from the wall and, looking him in the eye, broke it over her knee and threw the pieces aside before leaping into his arms. He caught her, of course, and their mouths met and tongues danced gleefully. They were both breathless when they drew apart and she slid down his body. She gestured for him to follow her and went into the Life Support room. She frowned when she didn't find what she was looking for.

"What is it, Siha?" he asked.

"Where the hell did it go?" she demanded, searching the room. "Ah! It must have gotten knocked off of the table during the crash." She pulled her head out from beneath the table and triumphantly held up a black mug. She turned and set it solidly at its place and then turned to nod decisively at him.

"You kept my cup?" he asked with a raised brow.

"I did," she said, stalking over to push him back into his chair with two fingers. She straddled his lap and cupped his face. "I think that maybe a part of me hoped that, since I'd never gotten confirmation that you were gone, you'd come back someday and it would all just be some kind of sick joke or misunderstanding. I used to come in here and remember our talks and try to feel close to you. I used your cup," she admitted.

"What is mine is yours, Siha," he said, running his hands gently up and down her back.

She leaned her forehead against his shoulder and laid her palms flat against his chest. "This is where I fell in love with you. It wasn't instantaneous like it was with Garrus. I knew the first time I saw him that he was going to be important to me, that I'd found a piece of myself I hadn't even known I was missing. It was different with you. I wanted you, gods, I wanted you the instant you dropped out of that vent back on Ilium but you were so cold and condescending that I didn't like you. I remember watching you prowl around the desk, so confident in your body and assured of your own superiority with the amber light of sunset framing you like a halo and thinking, 'This is what the angel of death looks like. He's not a ghoul in a tattered cloak. He's a predator bathed in the light of a dying sun.' You opened your mouth and I was so entranced by your voice that I missed the tone and the words at first. When I realized what you were saying and the attitude that accompanied it, I thought, 'Well, damn. He's lethal and he'll be fun to look at but his personality is seriously shit.'  
"I came the first few times out of obligation. I needed to know my crew and that included you. I never questioned your intelligence--hell, you're smarter than I am--but I thought you were an ass. And then your eyes started lighting up when I walked in the room and you began to open up. I almost fell out of that chair the first time you made a joke. It was so unexpected that I almost missed it for what it was. Coming to talk to you became the highlight of my day. I'd anticipate it throughout the day. Running missions with you was, well, amazing because you are fun to look at and you're a hell of a teammate, but this was what I valued most.  
"You weren't the only one who was disconnected, Thane. I may have woken you from your battle sleep but you did the same for me. I understand what you mean by that because I died and my body and mind came back but I wasn't me anymore. I went through the motions without feeling anything. You made me feel alive for the first time since I'd woken up on that table. I loved you long before I was willing to put a name to it. You were vital to me. I know I drove you crazy asking about your health all the time, but I was so afraid of losing you. I almost benched you when I saw the report saying that any injury could significantly reduce your expected lifespan. I didn't because I respected you too much and I knew you'd rather go out fighting than lying helpless in a hospital bed but every time you so much as flinched, I had to fight panic. When you fell on the Collector base, I felt like I was watching my whole life fall away from me. I'd have dived after anyone in my crew but with you...if you fell, I was falling, too. And I saw it in your eyes, that recognition, that trust that I'd catch you or follow you over. When I thought you'd died, I fell apart. I went to Purgatory and drank myself into oblivion trying to numb the pain.  
"I almost told Hackett to go fuck himself. I hated him for sending me on that mission and putting me into that position. I railed against him for stealing what little time we had left. Poor Vega never took his eyes off me when Hackett was around because he was convinced I'd kill him. I was so angry, Thane, and there wasn't a god damn thing I could do. I was cut off from everyone who mattered. Even Anderson was only allowed limited time with me. He tried, gods know he tried, but the batarians were screaming for my blood and we both knew that we couldn't afford to go to war with them knowing the Reapers were in the galaxy. I wrote you letters and tried to bribe Vega into smuggling them out for you but he told me no."

"A wise choice," Thane said. "They would have removed him from your guard detail."

"I didn't care," she said. "I didn't know if you were dead or alive, if you were healthy or sick, if you were worried about me or had picked up and moved on. I think that was part of it, too, with Garrus. At first, I was absolutely convinced that you were dead because if you were alive you'd be by my side. But I contacted medical facilities on the Citadel, Kahje, even Sur'Kesh, and watched the death reports from Kahje, especially after that big, stupid indoctrinated jellyfish tried to turn it over to the Reapers, and your name was never on the casualty lists. Kahje was largely ignored by the Reapers. There weren't that many who died there. You weren't listed. I had EDI run searches through all of the casualty lists and I knew they were incomplete but she cross-referenced millions of names for yours and your aliases and names that matched the patterns of your aliases and searched for reports of drell when species and gender were the only things listed. It was like you'd ceased to exist altogether. You were just gone and I thought that if you were alive then that meant you were gone by choice. Our time together had been so short and when Kolyat suggested that you'd returned to Kahje to die so that your body could be given to the sea with his mother, I thought you'd decided to go to her instead or that you'd wanted to spend what was left of your life close to her. I wondered if the same thing had happened with us that happened with her, if when I was no longer able to provide you with direction you'd abandoned me for the hunt. I've never been jealous of Irikah before that but I was then. Kolyat said you'd called his mother Siha, too, and I hated it. I started to wonder if I was just a stand-in, if all of the times you called out what I'd thought was my name you were actually remembering her. Everything I thought I knew shifted and Garrus was there to catch me when I fell like he always was. He became the last solid point for me in a rapidly shifting universe."

Thane's fingers threaded through her hair and he tilted her head back so that she was looking up at him. "Why did you not tell me this before?" he asked.

"Because you came back," she said. "It wasn't important anymore."

He said, "You may not have eidetic memory but memories still have the power to cause pain. If I hurt you, I need to know because I cannot atone for something of which I am unaware. Yes, I loved Irikah as much as I could love anyone at the time but it was like loving a goddess. She was too good, too pure, too innocent of the darker side of reality. She thought that she could mold me and change me into what she wanted to be but she couldn't comprehend the depths of my soul. She was someone I should have adored from afar but, instead, I claimed her for my own and destroyed her because all I had inside of me to give was death. It was all I knew. Kolyat was young when I was last there and his memory was still forming. I did not call her Siha. She was strong in her own way but she was not a warrior. She was Arashu, motherhood and protection and hearth and home. But, at the time, I had no use for Arashu. Amonkirah was my god. You are Siha, my warrior-angel, the one who can look into my soul and see the darkness and stand unwavering in the face of it. You channeled my skills and took me from being a tool for entropy to one for order and salvation. When I kill for you, I kill for a purpose. I know that your enemies deserve death. You have succeeded where she could not because your nature allows you to see both life and death. I love you because you are you, Shepard, not because you are a stand-in or a replacement for my dead wife. It is an insult to all three of us to imply that I view the two of you as interchangeable and you would understand that if I were to imply the same of Garrus and myself."

She pressed her lips to his and said, "You're right. I'm sorry. It was...a strange time."

Thane said, "I know, Siha, and I am sorry that I was not by your side. It was not for lack of desire. Now, while you and I do still have much to catch up on, I believe that Garrus has a greater need for your attention as I have had it solely focused on myself for the past months while he was forced to compete with the war and the needs of your crew when you were his alone."

"I love you," she said again.

"And I, you," he said. "Now, go. Your heart is content. Reconnect with your soul."

She smiled and he held her waist to help her stand. She cast a final, happy glance over her shoulder to see him sitting in his spot with his hands clasped as she'd never thought to see him again.

She found Garrus in the main battery. Rather than working, he was leaned back against the console, waiting for her. The doors closed behind her and she was assaulted with memories of the countless hours spent in this room with him, laughing and talking, reminiscing, leaning on each other, revealing their hopes and fears. This was the first place he'd actually said that he loved her. _That's what love does. Turns a guy like me into a nervous wreck with something to lose and an aim to make sure he doesn't. Nobody better hurt you, is all I'm saying._ When she opened her eyes, he abandoned his casual pose and walked toward her but stopped just short of actually touching her. She looked up and saw the doubt and uncertainty in his eyes. He was still here but he wasn't certain she wanted him to be. So she closed the gap, wrapping an arm around his waist and another around his neck to draw his head down to hers. When she rubbed slightly against him in the motion that, with a turian, would have imparted her scent onto him, he repeated the gesture with a shudder that ran through his entire body. He whispered her name like a prayer. "Shepard. You're alive."

"I couldn't disobey a direct order from the man who advised the Primarch, now, could I?" she asked. Her tone was light but she felt her own tremors running through her.

"How close was it?" he asked, sounding choked.

"Pretty damn close," she admitted. "I lost my leg, Garrus. My leg is gone."

His arms tightened around her and he rumbled soothingly. "What a fine pair we make, eh, Shepard? Me with half a face and you with half a leg. Given that I didn't expect either one of us to be standing here again after seeing London, I'd say we got off pretty easy. Your hair is different."

She chuckled. "Oh, Garrus. Only you would discount a missing limb but be bothered by shorter hair."

"I love your hair," he said. "Your legs are nice, but I really love your hair. Does it hurt?"

"My hair?" she teased. He snorted and she answered seriously, "It's not as bad as it was. It gets sore but so does the rest of me. I don't have phantom pains. Dr. Michel said I probably wouldn't since I was awake. My brain knows it's gone."

"You were...awake?" he asked, his eyes widening.

"When I hadn't passed out," she said. "I don't remember it but the doctor filled me in. Medical supplies were already running low due to the influx of the wounded. The doc started to give the last dose to sedate me but there was this little boy screaming in the hallway. Screaming and screaming like they were murdering him and the voice was turian and I kept picturing this little version of you. He'd broken his collarbone, a plate, and had to have his arm amputated and they were about to give me the last dose. So I told them to save it for the kids. You know it takes enough to sedate a full-grown krogan to keep me under. They could have kept that boy under for a week on what would buy them only a few hours with me. If one of us had to be awake through that, it needed to be me."

He sighed and said, "Of course you did."

"You'd have done the same damn thing and you know it," she said.

"That's different. I'm not you," he said seriously.

She said, "When word got out that I was at the hospital and had refused medication due to supply, pain meds and sedatives started pouring in. People took their private stuff and donated it back to the hospital. So I got to be knocked out for the debridement, which was the worst part."

"Do I want to know what that is?" he asked.

"They had to remove the burned skin in order to replace grafts. The doc said that, in the state I was in, the pain alone probably would have killed me. She'd, uh, already had to revive me a few times."

"How many is a few?" he asked and his grip tightened until his talons were pressing into her skin. She didn't care.

"You'll have to ask her," she said. "I lost count."

"Spirits, Shepard," he breathed. "You're okay now, right? You're going to be okay?"

She brought her hand around to cup his mandible and drew her head away so that he was looking at her and said, "I'm fine, Garrus. I'm clumsy and I'm scarred and I need to hit the gym and get some meat back on my bones but I'm all right. The only thing that couldn't be fixed was the leg and I'll...get used to it."

He swept her up and carried her over to the crate beside his workbench where she'd sat so many times. After settling her in his lap, he said, "You amaze me, Shepard. You're beautiful, strong, powerful, sexy, smart, and too good for your own good. If someone had told me the morning we met that I was about to meet the love of my life and that she would be a human, I'd have called them clinically insane. I know it took me a little longer to get over the species barrier but I think I loved you from the moment I heard you rail against the Council. You've stood by me when no one else has. You are...you're...you're Shepard. I just need to know what you want from me now that Thane is back."

"Don't make me choose," she said. "It'll tear me apart."

"Never," he whispered.

"Just like that?" she asked.

"Just like that," he said. "Hell, Shepard, I knew there was a possibility he'd show up. We never got confirmation that he died. I'd have been a fool not to prepare for that possibility. He's too smart to give an ultimatum given everything we've been through together. So I just had to worry about me. If you'll notice, I didn't ask if you were ready to be a one man kind of woman. I asked if you were ready to be a one turian kind of woman. I'll even amend that to a one drell and one turian kind of woman. Just, ah, no one else, okay?"

"I don't want anyone else," she said.

He smiled and said, "You know...this could be fun."

She groaned exaggeratedly. "Oh, gods. You're already thinking of ways to gang up on me, aren't you?"

He gave her an innocent look. "Who, me? Never," he purred.

"Liar," she charged.

"Definitely," he laughed. "Hey, which leg is it?"

"The left one," she said. "Why?"

"You did remember to tell them to put a right one on there, then, didn't you?" he asked.

"Are you saying I had two left feet, Garrus Vakarian?" she asked, bumping his shoulder.

"I've seen you dance, remember?" he teased.

"Hmm. I think we did pretty well together that one time," she said with a fond smile.

"Yeah, we did. Shepard? Unless you're cleared for sexual activity, you should probably get up now." When she sighed and stood, he said, "Oh! I forgot to tell you. I fed your fish and your space hamster. I, ah, stayed in the cabin."

"It's our cabin," she said, brushing a kiss across his lips. "And thank you. I should probably go check on the little guy. Poor thing. He's been through a lot. What?" she asked as Garrus began to laugh.


	6. Chapter 6

Even with the first two floors of the building belonging to them, they had to share quarters. Shepard didn't mind. Vega and Cortez moved in to the downstairs bedroom and they converted the library into a room for Kasumi. The upstairs bedroom remained open for Garrus or Thane. Tali went back to the Fleet to be with Kal'Reegar but, since the Fleet was between Earth and the Citadel, she was only a shuttle ride away. Liara, Javik, Feron, and Kolyat moved in next door and Joker, EDI, Karin, and Zaeed took the one beside them. Sam, Ken, and Gabby took a unit downstairs and Kaidan, Jack, Wrex, and Grunt agreed to room together. Samara chose to stay with Jacob and Brynn while she waited to be able to return to Falere. Miranda and Oriana moved in with them as well.

They were all packed tightly together but they were accustomed to being in close quarters with each other. Some odd pairings had developed over the years, some she'd noticed and some she hadn't. She didn't know whether she was more surprised by Kaidan and Jack's blossoming relationship or Karin and Zaeed's apparently established one, but they seemed to work. She'd always pictured Steve and Vega together as well Ken and Gabby. Oriana seemed to have a crush on Kolyat but he'd met an asari and seemed enamored with her. Feron and Miranda, on the other hand, began spending a surprising amount of time together. They'd known each other before when he'd been working as a double agent for Cerberus but Shepard had thought there was little love lost between the two. She was beginning to think she was wrong.

Thane and Garrus seemed to truly accept their shared relationship and, at first, would take turns sharing her bed while the other slept in the spare room. However, they both fell asleep before her one night watching vids in her bed and she decided that the bed was big enough for three. After that, they stopped using the spare room unless one of them had trouble sleeping or needed privacy. Neither Garrus nor Thane were social creatures, though Garrus handled it better, so they appreciated having somewhere they could go to be alone. She was still restricted in her activities, so sleep was all that happened but the arrangement still allowed for a simple intimacy.

She woke one morning with her head on Thane's chest and Garrus' arm around her waist. Garrus had moved so that his forehead was against the back of her head and Thane's arm was tucked under his neck. When she looked down, she saw that their hands were resting on each other and raised an eyebrow in consideration. They'd become more physically comfortable since sleeping in the same bed but this was unexpected. It wasn't unwelcome, though. She'd felt a bit guilty about having the both of them when they only had her but was happy with their triad as it was. If they had each other as well then they formed a completed unit.

She felt Garrus lift his head slightly as he pulled his mandibles from her hair. He'd said before that the only downside to sleeping with a human was hair getting tangled in them. He didn't seem to mind, though, as he took the opportunity to nuzzle the back of her head. His hand gently squeezed her hip but she noticed that he didn't remove it from beneath Thane's. Thane rumbled happily and she felt his lips brush the top of her head. She mumbled, "Mornin' boys. Know what the best part of the war being over is?"

"What's that?" Garrus asked sleepily.

"No alarm clocks. Nowhere to go. We can stay like this for as long as we want," she answered.

"You have an appointment with the doctor today," Thane reminded her on a yawn.

"What time?" she asked. Having a boyfriend with a perfect memory could be a curse but in some cases was also a blessing.

"Thirteen hundred," he answered. "She's coming here."

"And it's now...six thirty," she said, glancing at her newly installed omni-tool. "I think we're safe."

Thane's thigh slid up to rest between her legs and she bit back a moan. It was the closest she'd come to any sexual contact in months and it had been almost a year and a half since she had been with Thane and her reaction was instantaneous. He groaned as the thigh of her good leg came up to rest against him and she felt Garrus rumble behind her in the way he did when she brushed his fringe. She reached up to do just that and found Thane's hand already there with Garrus leaning back into it. She ran her fingers along the underside of the spines and his hand tightened on her hip as his rumble became an outright purr. It sounded like she was caught between two big cats and she smiled against Thane's shoulder.

They stopped abruptly and leapt almost simultaneously from the bed and looked down at her from either side with twin looks of consternation. She gestured to Thane and said, "He started it."

Thane cocked his head and said, "Guilty as charged. I should not have. You are not yet healed."

"You know she's going to clear me," Shepard said.

"And when she does, we may very well both jump you at the same time," Garrus said. "But, until then, we are all going to behave."

"We do not want you hurt, Siha," Thane said reasonably.

She didn't feel reasonable. She felt like dragging them both back down beside her and having her way with them. She considered it briefly but Thane had always been stronger than she and was especially so now. Garrus had been difficult to take down even before she was injured. She was outnumbered and outmatched physically. However, an idea occurred to her and she rolled to face Thane. It had been the longest for him and he had started it so she pegged him as the weaker link. If he caved, then Garrus would follow. He was still trying to figure out what she was doing when she reached into his shorts and pulled him out. Before he could pull away, she took him into her mouth.

Thane's knees went weak and his hips rolled slightly, thrusting him into her mouth. He groaned loudly, "Oh, gods, Shepard!" and his hand fisted in her hair. She licked along his ridges and he thrust again as she brought her hands up to cup his tightly sculpted ass. She smiled slightly around him as his hands left her hair to circle her wrists. Abruptly, he pulled away from her and her body tingled as she froze in place from the stasis field he'd used on her. He gave her a warning look when she tried to stare him down and said, "Behave, Siha, or you will get neither of us."

"Hey, Lola!" Vega called out from below. "I hear you guys moving around up there. Who wants eggs? Death? Scars?"

Thane released her and the blue glow faded from his fist. She pressed her forehead into the mattress and groaned. "Damn roommates."

Thane said, "Eggs, death, and scars for breakfast? What, exactly, is he cooking?"

She said, "He likes nicknames. You'll get used to it. I'm Lola, Garrus is Scars. Tali is Sparks. Cortez is Esteban. He says some people don't fit their names, so he gives them new ones. You, apparently are Death." She looked back over her shoulder at Garrus and said, "Your job, your only job today, is to get rid of all three of them when Karin gets here this afternoon and keep them gone for...oh...twelve hours or so."

"I don't think you have the stamina for that," he said.

"You know how I love a challenge, Vakarian, and I've got a hell of a lot of lost time to make up with both of you," she said.

"Krios! I know you hear me! You want eggs? Vakarian, I got you some dextro ones!" Vega shouted.

She and Garrus shook their heads and he said, "At least we don't have a hangover this time."

"We'd better go before he wakes up the whole building," she said with a wistful sigh. A few more hours.

When they arrived in the kitchen, Thane looked pointedly at Vega and said, "Death?"

Vega shrugged and said, "Seemed appropriate. You're an assassin. Thane can be a shortened form of Thanatos, which is Greek for 'death'. We all thought you were dead. It's kind of associated with you all around. Now, who wants eggs?"

___

Shepard fidgeted as Karin scanned and poked and prodded. "Well, Doc?" she finally said. "What's the verdict?"

"The new cybernetics Miranda built have begun to work again. Your organs have repaired, your scars and grafts are healing nicely. Your prosthetic could use an upgrade now that we have better supplies available from Earth but you seem to be adjusting to it quite well. You may return to light duty. Keep in mind that you have not done real exercise in six months and your muscles have atrophied somewhat. You cannot push yourself the way you are accustomed to doing. Start slow and build up over time. I want you to continue your physical therapy and make an appointment with the prosthetist. Aside from those restrictions, you're free to do as you like."

"Good," she said with feeling. "Now make sure that Garrus and Thane know that."

Karin smiled and said, "I can do that. Do you need any creams or ointments? Any allergy medications? I left that to Mordin before, but..."

Shepard swallowed at the memory of the conversations she'd had with Mordin, first about Thane during the Collector mission and the second about Garrus when he'd returned to cure the genophage. It hadn't been any more comfortable the second time around.

_'Shepard, glad you came down. Wanted to talk. Medical matters.'_  
'Oh, no. Not again,' she'd groaned. 'Mordin, I know Thane's condition will have changed by now. Just tell me if I need to do anything different and let's never speak of this again.'  
'Not Thane. Garrus. Mutual attraction predates Thane. Resurgence makes sense given absence and uncertainty surrounding him. Nothing to be ashamed of. Turian plates rougher than human skin. May cause chafing. Also, turians have dextro-amino proteins. Can cause anaphylaxis if allergic. Don't, ah, ingest. Can provide creams and allergy medication to counteract issues. Will send them to your cabin.'  
Shepard felt heat creep up her cheeks at the thought of 'ingesting' with Garrus. She briefly wondered what he would taste like and then pushed the thought away with more effort than she'd like to admit. She thought of Thane and felt incredibly guilty. She was so focused on exiting the med bay as swiftly as possible that she didn't even stop to tell him not to bother. She'd had Garrus' blood all over her after Omega without a reaction and her skin weave made it stronger than most. And she definitely wasn't going to sleep with Garrus, so it didn't matter anyway. The fact that the latter was an afterthought was something she didn't realize until later. 

"No. I'm not allergic to Garrus and has smoother plates than most," she said. "Thane doesn't cause a rash, either, though he has sent me on some pretty wild trips."

Karin smiled. "Nothing to counteract those, I'm afraid. However, I thought drell venom was mild?"

Shepard cleared her throat and looked away as she said, "Thane's is, uh, potent. He could probably make decent money selling Weeping Hearts. It'd be better than that synthesized shit." Once, when she'd been particularly lonely and missing him even more than usual, she'd gone to a bar and ordered a Weeping Heart. The bartender had warned her to take it slow but she'd thrown back the shot. A short while later, the only effects she'd noticed were a slight halo around things and she'd asked the bartender if he'd forgotten to add the venom. He'd remarked that she was the first person he'd seen fail to react to it.


	7. Chapter 7

Karin left and Thane and Garrus prowled into the room a few minutes later. Thane locked the door and Garrus said, "Mission accomplished. Vega, Cortez, and Kasumi are under orders to occupy themselves for a minimum of twelve hours."

Thane said, "We have discussed our options, Siha, and decided that we are amenable to the idea of working together."

Garrus removed his shirt and said, "We've always done well as a team before."

Thane threw his jacket over the chair and said, "As evidenced by the Collectors or absence thereof."

Garrus worked his pants over his spurs and said, "A plethora of geth."

Thane removed his own pants and said, "An untold number of mercenaries."

Garrus said, "So, we thought that since we make such a fine trio on the battlefield, we'd like to see how we do off."

She wet her lips and asked. "What's the target?"

They answered together, "You," and sprung. Thane's mouth crushed against hers and his tongue demanded entrance. Her lips parted and he invaded, using his fist in her hair to tilt her head back and allow him full access. He pulled back from her when Garrus lifted her shirt over her head from behind but was back within seconds. Her hands roamed Thane's bare chest, tracing the line of uneven scales down his chest and pulling her mouth away from his to follow the path of her fingers. His breath caught and that was now a good thing. He pulled her back to him and she trailed her hands over the pattern of dark stripes embracing his body.

She murmured against his lips, "Gods, I'd forgotten how beautiful you are."

Garrus' hands went to her waist and she felt his tongue dart into the small hollow behind her ear. She brought a hand back to clasp the back of his neck and he groaned as she found the spot between the plates of his spine ridge that could send him into peals of helpless laughter or mindless lust with a touch. He responded by bringing his hand around to her front to stroke her boldly and her hips jerked hard as she cried out into Thane's mouth. He drank in her cries and cupped her breast in his hand, rolling her nipple between thumb and forefinger. His other hand gripped her hair tightly and Garrus' came up to lightly trace a talon up her spine, arching her into his finger and Thane's hand.

Sensation threatened to overwhelm her as smooth scales slid over her front contrasted with the rougher leather of Garrus' hide and she writhed under the onslaught of their combined touch, driven mindless with need. They were purring again and she could feel the vibrations through her entire body and heard her own wordless sounds spilling from her lips. Thane growled, "It has been too long for a slow buildup this time, Siha. We wish to take you hot and hard and fast."

Garrus slid his length along the crease of her ass as Thane's cock replaced Garrus' finger along her front and she cried out a barely coherent plea but Garrus said, "Oh, we plan to take you this way, but not yet."

At that, Garrus released her and Thane turned them so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to his front and her body exposed to Garrus. Her eyes dropped to her bare leg and she bit her lip, suddenly self-conscious. Thane had seen her nude, had helped her bathe, had massaged the muscles of her thigh when they'd locked up and screamed in protest over the prosthetic. She wasn't worried about his reaction. Their basic physical shape was similar enough that his attraction to her had never been in doubt.

Garrus, on the other hand, was different. He'd admitted that he didn't have what he called a 'fetish for humans' and that his attraction to her was based on who she was rather than what she was and his feelings for her because of it. She had only recently begun to believe him when he told her that he found her beautiful and desired her physically before the final battle. The last time that he had seen her without clothing had been the night before they'd arrived at Earth. Her skin then had been far less scarred, her muscles trim and tone, her body whole. If he'd had difficulty finding her attractive before, then there was no way that he would be able to do so now.

Thane's hands softened on her and he gave her a concerned look before kissing the side of her neck. He knew that she knew that he still thought her beautiful so he abandoned his urgency and leaned back on his hands, allowing her a moment with Garrus. Her turian lover's eyes were locked on her leg and she stared at a spot above his head, unwilling to see the revulsion that she was sure would cross his face at any moment. She had a sudden and intense desire for clothing and she reached out to pull the sheet over herself. Thane's hand clamped down on her wrist and he murmured, "Trust him, Siha."

Something eased within her at his words. She did trust Garrus. She trusted him with her life. She trusted him with her heart. She trusted him with her body. He was her partner, her soul, her mate. So she risked a glance down at him and saw that, instead of revolted, he looked...hurt. That was echoed in his voice when he chided, "Shepard, I thought we talked about this. I took a rocket to the face and you still swear that I'm the sexiest thing--or one of them, at least--to roam the galaxy. You dressed my wounds and changed my bandages and kissed my scars when I wanted to hide them from you. You cannot seriously think for one minute that I would love you or desire you any less because you have more of your own."

"That's why I think that," she said. "You're so self-conscious about yours. You're ashamed of them. I know you're vain, Garrus. Hell, everybody knows you're vain. I know you liked being seen with me when people stopped and stared because you claimed I looked 'smoking hot.' But now...I have no vanity left. If people look twice at me in a dress now it will be with shock and pity and the wrong kind of awe."

His voice was harsh but his hands over her legs--both of them as the sensors in her prosthetic told her--were gentle. "Do you really think I care what other people think? They should look at you in awe. You saved them all and these marks are the evidence of that. These scars are badges of honor, Shepard. Do not ever, ever be ashamed of them. You are the most beautiful creature to ever walk this galaxy."

He rose and pressed his forehead to hers and continued more softly, "I know I was...hesitant...at first and I know I was self-conscious about my own appearance because yes, you're right, I am vain. More than that, though, I was afraid that you did not like them and thought less of me because of them. These," he said, gesturing to his face, "are marks of failure, not of victory. That is why I was ashamed of them. They reminded me of how badly I fucked up and so all I could see were my own failings and I thought that was what you saw as well. I thought that was why you turned to Thane and that I had lost any chance I ever had with you."

She brought her hand up to cup his scarred mandible and he covered hers with his. "Oh, Garrus, you silly fool. It had nothing to do with your scars. You pushed me away and you shut me out. You were one of the only solid points I had left while my world was turned on its axis and you were just as lost as I was but, instead of reaching out like I tried to do, you closed in on yourself like you always do when you're in pain. I know now that that's what you do but I didn't then and I thought you were there out of obligation because I had rescued you and that you just wanted me to leave you alone. So I did. Thane was there for me. He was a friend when I needed one badly. He didn't ask anything of me. He was glad when I sought him out. Hell, for a while there, he was the only one who seemed truly glad to see me when I walked in the door. So I started walking through his door more and yours less because every time I tried to talk to you, it was, 'Maybe later. I'm in the middle of some calibrations.' EDI could have handled the damn calibrations. I needed you. You weren't there. Thane was. You more than made up for that during the war. I couldn't have done it without you. But at the time, he was my light in the darkness and I couldn't have gotten through the Collector mission without him." Thane's hand slipped forward and gently brushed her hip before retreating.

"I'm sorry, Shepard," he breathed. "I was so...lost. I knew you were in over your head but I got so focused on turians being unable to swim that I didn't even think about throwing you a damn rope."

"You made up for it," she said again.

"You are beautiful, Shepard. I may not have a human fetish, but I definitely have a you fetish. I don't care about the leg. It just means you'll make me look even more stylish as a dance partner," he said. "In all seriousness, though, the only thing that bothers me about your leg is that it bothers you and the thought that if I had just been a little bit faster or a little less focused on being afraid of losing you and what was happening in front of you and a little more focused on my own damn surroundings, I'd have been there with you at the beam and you might not have been so hurt. The last time I saw you, you were sprinting on two good legs. And then Harbinger hit you and when I saw you again, you had to focus just to walk and it's my fault. It's my job to watch your six, not your front. I forgot that you were Commander Fucking Shepard and all I could see was the love of my life running through hell and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to keep her safe because I can handle a flock of harvesters that blocks out the sun and I can handle a psychotic, jealousy-ridden clone and I can handle husks and brutes and marauders and banshees but how the hell do you protect your mate from a god damn Reaper?"

He was all but shouting by the end and she stood in front of him and pulled him into her, wrapping her arms around his neck and curling over his crest, so that she could hold him while he shook. "Hey, hey, it's okay, Garrus. I'm here. We're alive. We're all alive and we're here and we blew the the god damn Reapers not just back to whatever hole they crawled out of but to the very bowels of hell. We survived geth and rachni and Ilos and the Conduit and the Battle of the Citadel and death and Omega and Collectors and the Omega 4 relay and the Collector base. We survived Cerberus and Kai Leng and being shot by a Reaper on Tuchanka and the mother of all thresher maws and the fall of Earth and Palaven and Thessia. We survived Miranda's crazy father and my crazy clone and fish tanks and gunships and mercenaries and husks and brutes and harvesters that blacked out the sky and Leviathan and being chased by a Reaper on Rannoch and the battle for Earth and the beam run and getting hit by a truck and shot by Harbinger and the Crucible and being stranded on some godforsaken rock somewhere and we survived the god damn Reapers. That is worth far more than a damn leg. You got hit by an armored truck, Garrus! You were just as beaten down, just as exhausted, just as low on hope and faith as anyone else and more than most because you'd seen the most and because you'd spent the last six months holding up the Primarch and Sparatus and Palaven and me. But you didn't give up.  
"You were on fucking fire, Garrus, on...fucking...fire and you still kept going. I have never been so scared in my entire life as I was when I turned around and saw you and Tali racing after me with fucking fire trailing off of you like you'd suddenly become an actual archangel and that truck went flying at you like Harbinger had aimed it at you specifically to take you down because it knew, it knew that would be what broke me. It knew that if I found your dead body lying there I'd be done. I would have lost my fucking mind right there in the middle of that godforsaken burned-out field of blood and horror and death and he'd have taken me down right there on the spot and, knowing that both you and Thane were gone, I wouldn't have even bothered to duck. That's why I sent you back to the _Normandy_. I had to know that you were out of its reach because, at that point, I could survive anything but losing you."

Thane started to shift behind her and she fixed him with a solid look. "Oh, no. You aren't going anywhere, Sere Krios. Don't even think about it. I'd be saying the same thing to you if the situation were reversed. I can survive losing one of you. I've already thought I had and the other was there to keep me going. I would never be fully happy but I'd survive it. But I can't survive losing you both. People ask me all the damn time how I did it and I give them the party line about how I'm just a regular soldier just like everybody else because they needed to believe that they could do it, too, but the truth is that they couldn't all do it because I didn't do it alone. How did I do it? The answer to that question is right here in this room and the rest of it is right here in this building. The two of you are the secret behind what makes me me."

Thane said, "No, Siha. He is. I am just...along for the ride."

"Bullshit, Thane," she said forcefully. "When I made my choice, knowing that I was walking toward my own death and all I could hear was Garrus' voice saying, 'Forgive the insubordination, but your boyfriend has an order for you: come back alive. It'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you,' and I knew--or thought I knew--that I was going to be unable to follow that order, I faltered. But I also knew--or thought I knew--that there was no way I was getting off of the Citadel alive. I'd been shot almost point blank by a Reaper after fighting our way through London with almost no rest at the end of years of running from one battle to another and was holding on to consciousness by a thread. If I'd chosen control, I'd have been locked in there for eternity. If I'd chosen synthesis, I'd have been ripped apart and disseminated. If I chose to destroy them, I was destroying myself as well. If I didn't choose, then I'd have sat there alone and watched the galaxy fall in front of me. I didn't have a choice. So when I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him behind, I turned to you, Thane. You gave me the strength to keep going, to fire those shots and take those steps and finish what I'd started and leave the galaxy a brighter place. Removing evil isn't the same as creating good, but I could damn well make sure that I removed the evil so that others could live to create the good and you are what allowed me to do that. There is no Shepard without Vakarian, that is the gods' truth. But there's also no Shepard without Krios. You saw Shepard without Vakarian. What did you see?"

"A dull, hopeless shell of yourself lit only occasionally from within who rallied herself for the sake of others when she had no will so do so for herself," he answered baldly.

She looked down. "Garrus, you saw Shepard without Krios. What did you see?"

"The same," he said, nuzzling her belly with his forehead. "Don't get me wrong, you were fantastic. You accomplished the impossible and you bore the weight of the galaxy on your shoulders while you did it. That would wear anyone down. But while Thane was gone...you lost your hope. You lost that spark. You were a wonder to behold when we were going after Saren, Shepard. I admired you and respected you and fell for you hard and fast. But you didn't truly come into yourself until Thane came along. Commander Shepard before Ilos was inspiring and she had untold potential. Commander Shepard before the Collector base was a force to be reckoned with. Commander Shepard before Earth was determined, still a force, but broken. It's not me who makes you everything you are. It's Thane."

"That, too, is bullshit," she said. "I had both of you during the Collector mission. I didn't have you like this but you were there and, once you dealt with the loss of your team and got your head back in the game, I had you. I had Thane. I was on my way to having all of the pieces of my puzzle in perfect alignment. And now I have both of you and the pieces have fallen into place. So don't either of you dare discount yourself. I am not me without both of you. I love you both and my love for each of you only increases my love for the other. We're a team. Garrus, Thane, and Shepard. The dream team. Together, we are unstoppable."

Garrus squeezed her hips and tilted his head back to look up at her. "You haven't forgotten how to give a speech."

She narrowed her eyes playfully and grumbled, "Shut up and kiss me."

"Gladly," he said and pushed her back onto Thane who caught her easily. Thane's hands clasped the insides of her thighs and drew them apart and then Garrus' mouth was on her. Her body bowed and she cried out as his tongue lapped over her before darting inside. She shouted his name and fisted her hands in the sheets. He reached in and guided Thane's cock between her legs and Thane groaned at the sensation of Garrus' hand wrapped around him. Garrus placed him against her. She lifted her head to see his long blue tongue gliding over Thane's ridged cock before darting in to her and slipping up to her clit. The sight was blatantly erotic and she reflected that she'd never considered that either of them could be bi but that she had no complaints about it.

Thane's body tightened beneath her and his hands came up to clench her hips. "Gods, Garrus, Shepard, please!"

"Hear that, Garrus?" she gasped as his tongue circled her clit. "We're gods...ohhh, god, please."

Garrus hummed and glanced up at her. "I like hearing the two of you beg me." With that, he applied himself once more to his task until Thane was thrusting up against her and Shepard wasn't sure if she was petitioning Garrus or Thane or the gods themselves. She felt Garrus' knuckles brush against her as he stroked Thane's cock before adjusting them and lining Thane up with her entrance. Thane's hands tightened on her and he pulled her down as he thrust up, filling her in a single stroke of his hips. Always before, he'd given her time to adjust to his girth but now he lifted her and withdrew almost completely as she was still stretching around him and then plunged into her again. Her hand entwined with Garrus' fringe and his moan vibrated the tongue that continued to lick them both.

Thane drove into her hard and fast as he'd promised and the force of his desire seemed to incite Garrus' own for he turned his head and nipped sharply at her inner thigh, taking care to avoid the artery that ran there, before returning his mouth to them and dragging his talons down the outside of hers and then the inside of Thane's. Thane bolted upright and she felt his teeth close over her shoulder and bear down, reopening the mark he'd left on her before leaving the _Normandy_. Drell teeth were much like human teeth in shape and placement but where human teeth were relatively dull, drells' had a sharp edge to allow them to shear through the thicker meat of the animals on their homeworld and to mark their territory in the denser skin of their mates. Marking had largely gone out of fashion with the younger generations of drell unlike with turians but Thane was an unapologetic traditionalist and he held her with his teeth as he claimed her.

The scent of blood and sight of another male marking his mate seemed to trigger something instinctive in the turian and Garrus surged upward and locked his own jaws over her opposite shoulder, thereby reopening the mark he had left on her the day on the Citadel when he'd asked if she was ready to be a one-turian kind of woman and they'd begun to plan for a future together. Rather than being a competitive thing, however, and making her feel torn between the two of them, Garrus reached around and put a hand on the back of Thane's head just below where a turian's fringe would be and pressed him closer to her. Thane did the same and Garrus rumbled deep in his chest. The sound was one of both possession and relief as if he'd discovered some certainty he hadn't held before. When her hands came up to twine with theirs, his hand on the back of Thane's neck squeezed her fingers.

She reached down and wrapped her hand around him without needing to look to find him. She knew his body and was as comfortable with it as if they had been lovers for years. He groaned against her skin and thrust into her hand as his breathing grew ragged. The sound spurred Thane on and he banded his free hand around her waist and thrust hard, sending shockwaves of pleasure rolling through her. He pulled out before her orgasm had fully run its course and Garrus stepped in and pushed himself inside of her. Thane licked the blood from her shoulder before collapsing back on the bed and allowing Garrus to slide his arm under her as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

He stalked up the bed with her without releasing his hold. She knew from the last time he had done this that his teeth would remain embedded in her until they reached completion unless she asked him to release her because of the pain. There was no real pain, though, only a wild, feral pleasure. When she turned her head and locked her own teeth against the side of his neck, his entire body shuddered and his talons raked over her skin. She had to work to get her dull teeth through his hide and she knew that it hurt more than it would have with a turian, but when she began to ease her grip, he brought a hand up to the back of her head and pressed her in as he'd done with Thane. She bit down again, hard, and he growled as he slammed into her again and again. She arched into him and felt the texture of his plates against her hypersensitive breasts and belly and tasted the sweet tang of his blood on her tongue.

He hooked her knee over his elbow and she only peripherally noted that it was the bad leg before he took advantage of the change in position to drive deeper into her until the thicker base of his cock was stretching her again and again as he pistoned in and out of her. Her nails dug into the plates in his back as she met him thrust for thrust and he drove her higher and higher and then held her there on the edge of completion as she bucked and writhed and begged him with her body. Thane's hand slid over her belly and down to circle the place where she and Garrus were joined and they tumbled over the edge together.

Rather than pull out as Thane had done, Garrus seated himself inside of her and the sensation of his base expanding drew out her orgasm. He'd never done this before but when his hips continued to rock with him locked inside of her, she threw back her head and cried his name. He released her shoulder to lightly nip her neck and then reached out for Thane who was ready again and stroking himself as he watched them. Garrus positioned the drell so that Thane was above and facing her. Thane braced himself against the wall as Shepard took him into her mouth. He thrust in time to Garrus' pulsing movements and she felt Garrus' tongue meet her lips as he licked Thane's shaft from behind. Thane chanted her name as his free hand twined with Garrus'.

The combined attack of their mouths on him and the length of time he'd gone without true release before this conspired to bring it about quickly. He tried to pull out but Shepard held him to her mouth and drank him down. He felt her throat working against him as she took it and he all but shouted, "Oh, fuck, Siha!"

She sucked him until he was hard again and he pulled out of her. "What a dirty mouth you have, Sere Krios," she teased breathlessly. "I like it."

He bent down to kiss her thoroughly with said mouth and then turned to Garrus, still locked inside of her, and did the same to him. When they eventually broke apart, Garrus leaned down to kiss her, completing the circle. Thane nuzzled the side of his neck and murmured something that drew an enthusiastic, "Definitely," from Garrus. Shepard cocked her head in curiosity and then watched with interest as Thane moved behind Garrus and ran his hand over his back before palming his ass. Garrus gasped and Thane reached a free hand up to stroke his fringe. Shepard wished she had a mirror so that she could see what Thane was doing to draw the sounds that were coming from the turian as he pressed deeper into her and buried his face in her shoulder.

"What did he say?" she asked quietly.

Garrus struggled to string the words together as he said, "He wants to fuck you through me."

"Oh, holy shit, that's hot," she groaned. Thane grinned wickedly at her over Garrus' shoulder and Garrus moaned and rocked deeper into her. Thane moved slowly at first, working into him with all of his customary patience until Garrus was a flurry of nips and scratches and mewling vocalizations. Shepard discovered that if she turned her head she could see their reflection in the darkened vid screen and she watched in fascination as Thane slowly sank into Garrus and seated himself in his ass. He withdrew just as slowly and Garrus tried to follow but was caught inside of her. Her head fell back and when Thane sank steadily in again, pushing Garrus deeper into her, she added her own voice to Garrus'.

Gradually, Thane increased his pace and Shepard figured out precisely what Thane had meant when he'd said he wanted to fuck her through Garrus. Garrus was effectively caught helplessly between them and when Thane withdrew, he did as well until he reached the point where her body stopped him. When Thane thrust, he did, too, until her body blocked him once more. Garrus was the one inside of her, but Thane was the one in control. When she figured this out, she gave Thane a wicked smile of her own and he nodded.

Thane and Garrus had worked together to take her over the edge and then she and Garrus had done so for Thane. Now she and Thane turned their attentions to Garrus and fought off their own rising desire to reduce Garrus to mindless pleasure. Shepard used her knowledge of his body to drive him up with her own and Thane used instinct and his connection with her to push him over. She felt him begin to spurt inside of her again and convulsed around him as he gasped roughly, "Spirits, Shepard! Thane! Please, please, mercy!"

Thane thrust twice more and then stiffened, calling out his own release, and withdrew. Garrus' body released him from hers and the two men collapsed on either side of her in a tangle of limbs. Their rapid breaths filled the air and mingled with the turian's and drell's purring non-verbal communications. "I wish I could understand those," she murmured as they nuzzled into her shoulders on their respective sides.

Garrus said, "I wish I could explain it."

Thane seemed to consider for a moment before saying, "It is emotion and concepts more than words and specifics. What you are hearing from both of us now is a deep satisfaction and sense of belonging, comfort, safety, and possession along with an acknowledgement of ourselves as active partners within this relationship. It is the forming of a triad, Siha, if you allow it."

"Why do I have the power to allow or disallow it?" she asked.

"Because you are the one who binds us together," he answered. "Neither of us have the desire to seek out a male partner on our own as we both prefer females and most will not allow a second partner but with you we are free to explore with each other. It strengthens the ties all the way around and prevents territoriality because we are a unit with each caring for the other."

"I don't see a downside here," she said. "I want you both to be happy."

"We are," Garrus said against her neck. "Spirits, I love you, woman." He raised his head to press his forehead to hers before doing the same with Thane. She smiled at the bliss on both men's faces as they came back down to lie tangled together with her.

**Author's Note:**

> I generally try not to make Shepard cry as it usually doesn't fit in with the character but she does cry for Thane in game so I figure a battered, PTSD-scarred Shep would probably have an excuse to let all of the things she's been holding in finally come out.
> 
> As far as Thane living, it never made sense to me that he would reject the transplant after his conversation with Shepard before the relay when he clearly doesn't want to die and then be so accepting of death a few months later. Also, you'll never convince me that Mordin could create and cure the genophage and Miranda and Cerberus could bring Shepard back to life but Kepral's Syndrome is incurable.


End file.
